UORARY 

Unlvws»»Y  o*  Cafifamte 

IRVINI 


THE    PORTION 
OF    LABOR 


MARY  E.  W1LKINS 

AUTHOR  OF 
'JEROME"  "A  NEW  ENGLAND  NUN"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 
AND  LONDON  MDCCCCl 


Ft 


Copyright,  1901,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 
Alt  rights  reserved 


TO 
HENRY   MILLS   ALDEN 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


'  '  WHAT  DID  SUCH  A  GOOD  LITTLE  GIRL  AS 
YOU  BE  RUN  AWAY  FROM  FATHER  AND 
MOTHER  FOR  ?'  " Frontispiece 

"EVA  SPRANG  FORWARD  AND  CLUTCHED 

HIM  BY  THE  ARM" Facing  p.  36 

"'SHE'S  GOT  HER!'  SHOUTED  THE  PEOPLE".  58 

"HE  FOUND  HIMSELF  WALKING   HOME  FROM 

SCHOOL  WITH  HER  " I?8 

THE  VALEDICTORY IQ2 

"'I'LL   STUDY  HARD  AND   TRY    TO    DO   YOU 

CREDIT  '  " 242 

"THE  AWKWARDNESS  OF  THE  SITUATION  WAS 

EVIDENTLY  OVERCOMING  HER"  ....  "  382 

"  '  IF  YOU  WANT  TO  KILL  A  GIRL  FOR  GOING 

BACK   TO   WORK   TO    SAVE   HERSELF    FROM 

STARVATION,   DO   IT  !'  " "  526 


THE  PORTION  OF  LABOR 


CHAPTER  I 

ON  the  west  side  of  Ellen's  father's  house  was  a  file 
of  Norway  spruce-trees,  standing  with  a  sharp  pointing 
of  dark  boughs  towards  the  north,  which  gave  them 
an  air  of  expectancy  of  progress. 

Every  morning  Ellen,  whose  bedroom  faced  that 
way,  looked  out  with  a  firm  belief  that  she  would  see 
them  on  the  other  side  of  the  stone  wall,  advanced  several 
paces  towards  their  native  land.  She  had  no  doubt  of 
their  ability  to  do  so ;  their  roots,  projecting  in  fibrous 
sprawls  from  their  trunks,  were  their  feet,  and  she  pict 
ured  them  advancing  with  wide  trailings,  and  rustlings 
as  of  green  draperies,  and  a  loudening  of  that  dreamy 
cry  of  theirs  which  was  to  her  imagination  a  cry  of 
homesickness  reminiscent  of  their  old  life  in  the  White 
North.  When  Ellen  had  first  heard  the  name  Norway 
spruce,  'way  back  in  her  childhood — so  far  back,  though 
she  was  only  seven  and  a  half  now,  that  it  seemed  to 
her  like  a  memory  from  another  life — she  had  asked 
her  mother  to  show  her  Norway  on  the  map,  and  her 
strange  convictions  concerning  the  trees  had  seized 
her.  When  her  mother  said  that  they  had  come  from 
that  northernmost  land  of  Europe,  Ellen,  to  whose 
childhood  all  truth  was  naked  and  literal,  immediately 
conceived  to  herself  those  veritable  trees  advancing  over 
the  frozen  seas  around  the  pole,  and  down  through  the 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

vast  regions  which  were  painted  blue  on  her  map, 
straight  to  her  father's  west  yard.  There  they  stood 
and  sang  the  songs  of  their  own  country,  with  a  melan 
choly  sweetness  of  absence  and  longing,  and  were 
forever  thinking  to  return.  Ellen  felt  always  a  thrill 
of  happy  surprise  when  she  saw  them  still  there  of  a 
morning,  for  she  felt  that  she  would  miss  them  sorely 
when  they  \vere  gone.  She  said  nothing  of  all  this  to 
her  mother ;  it  was  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  soul  which 
created  her  individuality  and  made  her  a  spiritual  birth. 
She  was  also  silent  about  her  belief  concerning  the 
cherry-trees  in  the  east  yard.  There  were  three  of 
them,  giants  of  their  kind,  which  filled  the  east  yard 
even^  spring  as  with  mountains  of  white  bloom,  breath 
ing  wide  gusts  of  honey  sweetness,  and  humming 
with  bees.  Ellen  believed  that  these  trees  had  once 
stood  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  but  she  never  expected 
to  find  them  missing  from  the  east  yard  of  a  morning, 
for  she  remembered  the  angel  with  the  flaming  sword, 
and  she  knew  how  one  branch  of  the  easternmost  tree 
happened  to  be  blasted  as  if  by  fire.  And  she  thought 
that  these  trees  were  happy,  and  never  sighed  to  the 
wind  as  the  dark  evergreens  did,  because  they  had  still 
the  same  blossoms  and  the  same  fruit  that  they  had  in 
Eden,  and  so  did  not  fairly  know  that  the}7  were  not 
there  still.  Sometimes  Ellen,  sitting  underneath  them 
on  a  low  rib  of  rock  on  a  May  morning,  used  to  fancy 
with  success  that  she  and  the  trees  were  together  in 
that  first  garden  which  she  had  read  about  in  the  Bible. 
Sometimes,  after  one  of  these  successful  imaginings, 
when  Ellen's  mother  called  her  into  the  house  she  would 
stare  at  her  little  daughter  uneasily,  and  give  her  a 
spoonful  of  a  bitter  spring  medicine  which  she  had 
brewed  herself.  When  Ellen's  father,  Andrew  Brew- 
ster,  came  home  from  the  shop,  she  would  speak  to  him 
aside  as  he  was  washing  his  hands  at  the  kitchen  sink, 

2 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

and  tell  him  that  it  seemed  to  her  that  Ellen  looked 
kind  of  "  pindlin'."  Then  Andrew,  before  he  sat  down 
at  the  dinner-table,  would  take  Ellen's  face  in  his  two 
moist  hands,  look  at  her  with  anxiety  thinly  veiled  by 
facetiousness,  rub  his  rough,  dark  cheek  against  her 
soft,  white  one  until  he  had  reddened  it,  then  laugh, 
and  tell  her  she  looked  like  a  bo'sn.  Ellen  never  quite 
knew  what  her  father  meant  by  bo'sn,  but  she  under 
stood  that  it  signified  something  very  rosy  and  hearty 
indeed. 

Ellen's  father  always  picked  out  for  her  the  choicest 
and  tenderest  bits  of  the  humble  dishes,  and  his  keen 
eyes  were  more  watchful  of  her  plate  than  of  his  own. 
Always  after  Ellen's  mother  had  said  to  her  father  that 
she  thought  Ellen  looked  pindling  he  was  late  about 
coming  home  from  the  shop,  and  would  turn  in  at  the 
gate  laden  with  paper  parcels.  Then  Ellen  would 
find  an  orange  or  some  other  delicacy  beside  her  plate 
at  supper.  Ellen's  aunt  Eva,  her  mother's  younger 
sister,  who  lived  with  them,  would  look  askance  at  the 
tidbit  with  open  sarcasm.  "  You  jest  spoil  that  young 
one,  Fanny,"  she  would  say  to  her  sister. 

"  You  can  do  jest  as  you  are  a  mind  to  with  your  own 
young  ones  when  you  get  them,  but  you  can  let  mine 
alone.  It's  none  of  your  business  what  her  father  and 
me  give  her  to  eat;  you  don't  buy  it,"  Ellen's  mother 
would  retort.  There  was  the  utmost  frankness  of 
speech  between  the  two  sisters.  Neither  could  have 
been  in  the  slightest  doubt  as  to  what  the  other  thought 
of  her,  for  it  was  openly  proclaimed  to  her  a  dozen  times 
a  day,  and  the  conclusion  was  never  complimentary. 
Ellen  learned  very  early  to  form  her  own  opinions  of 
character  from  her  own  intuition,  otherwise  she  would 
have  held  her  aunt  and  mother  in  somewhat  slighting 
estimation,  and  she  loved  them  both  dearly.  They 
were  headstrong,  violent  -  tempered  women,  but  she 

3 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

had  an  instinct  for  the  staple  qualities  below  that  sur 
face  turbulence,  which  was  lashed  higher  by  every 
gust  of  opposition.  These  two  loud,  contending  voices, 
which  filled  the  house  before  and  after  shop-hours— 
for  Eva  worked  in  the  shop  with  her  brother-in-law— 
with  a  duet  of  discords  instead  of  harmonies,  meant  no 
more  to  Ellen  than  the  wrangle  of  the  robins  in  the 
cherry-trees.  She  supposed  that  two  sisters  always 
conversed  in  that  way.  She  never  knew  why  her  father, 
after  a  fiery  but  ineffectual  attempt  to  quell  the  feminine 
tumult,  would  send  her  across  the  east  yard  to  her 
grandmother  Brewster's,  and  seat  himself  on  the  east 
door-step  in  summer,  or  go  down  to  the  store  in  the 
winter.  She  would  sit  at  the  window  in  her  grand 
mother's  sitting-room,  eating  peaceful!}^  the  slice  of 
pound  -  cake  or  cooky  with  which  she  was  always 
regaled,  and  listen  to  the  scolding  voices  across  the 
yard  as  she  might  have  listened  to  any  outside  dis 
turbance.  She  was  never  sucked  into  the  whirlpool 
of  wrath  which  seemed  to  gyrate  perpetually  in  her 
home,  and  wondered  at  her  grandmother  Brewster's 
impatient  exclamations  concerning  the  poor  child,  and 
her  poor  boy,  and  that  it  was  a  shame  and  a  disgrace, 
when  now  and  then  a  louder  explosion  of  wrath  struck 
her  ears. 

Ellen's  grandmother — Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster,  as 
she  was  called,  though  her  husband  Zelotes  had  been 
dead  for  many  years — was  an  aristocrat  by  virtue  of  in 
born  prejudices  and  convictions,  in  despite  of  circum 
stances.  The  neighbors  said  that  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster 
had  always  been  high-feeling,  and  had  held  up  her  head 
with  the  best.  It  would  have  been  nearer  the  truth 
to  say  that  she  held  up  her  head  above  the  best.  No 
one  seeing  the  erect  old  woman,  in  her  draperies  of  the 
finest  black  goods  to  be  bought  in  the  city,  could  es 
timate  in  what  heights  of  thin  upper  air  of  spiritual  con- 

4 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

sequence  her  head  was  elevated.  She  had  always  a 
clear  sight  of  the  head-tops  of  any  throng  in  which  she 
found  herself,  and  queens  or  duchesses  would  have  been 
no  exception.  She  would  never  have  failed  to  find  some 
stool  of  superior  possessions  or  traits  upon  which  to 
raise  herself,  and  look  down  upon  crown  and  coro 
net.  When  she  read  in  the  papers  about  the  marriage 
of  a  New  York  belle  to  an  English  duke,  she  reflected 
that  the  duke  could  be  by  no  means  as  fine  a  figure  of 
a  man  as  Zelotes  had  been,  and  as  her  son  Andrew 
was,  although  both  her  husband  and  son  had  got  all 
their  education  in  the  town  schools,  and  had  worked  in 
shoe-shops  all  their  lives.  She  could  have  looked  at  a 
palace  or  a  castle,  and  have  remained  true  to  the  splen 
dors  of  her  little  one-story-and-a-half  house  with  a  best 
parlor  and  sitting-room,  and  a  shed  kitchen  for  use  in 
hot  weather. 

She  would  not  for  one  instant  have  been  swerved  from 
utmost  admiration  and  faith  in  her  set  of  white-and-gold 
wedding  china  by  the  contemplation  of  Copeland  and 
Royal  Sevres.  She  would  have  pitted  her  hair-cloth 
furniture  of  the  ugliest  period  of  household  art  against 
all  the  Chippendales  and  First  Empire  pieces  in  exist 
ence. 

As  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  never  seen  any  household  pos 
sessions  to  equal  her  own,  let  alone  to  surpass  them, 
she  was  of  the  same  mind  with  regard  to  her  husband 
and  his  family,  herself  and  her  family,  her  son  and 
little  granddaughter.  She  never  saw  any  gowns 
and  shawls  which  compared  with  hers  in  fineness  and 
richness;  she  never  tasted  a  morsel  of  cookery  which 
was  not  as  sawdust  when  she  reflected  upon  her  own; 
and  all  that  humiliated  her  in  the  least,  or  caused  her  to 
feel  in  the  least  dissatisfied,  was  her  son's  wife  and  her 
family  and  antecedents. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster  had  considered  that  her  son 

5 


THE     PORT  I  OX     OF     LABOR 

Andrew  was  marrying  immeasurably  beneath  him 
when  he  married  Fanny  Loud,  of  Loudville.  Loudville 
was  a  humble,  an  almost  disreputably  humble,  suburb 
of  the  little  provincial  city.  The  Louds  from  whom 
the  locality  took  its  name  were  never  held  in  much 
repute,  being  considered  of  a  stratum  decidedly  below 
the  ordinary  social  one  of  the  city.  When  Andrew  told 
his  mother  that  he  was  to  marry  a  Loud,  she  declared 
that  she  would  not  go  to  his  wedding,  nor  receive 
the  girl  at  her  house,  and  she  kept  her  word.  When 
one  day  Andrew  brought  his  sweetheart  to  his  home 
to  call,  trusting  to  her  pretty  face  and  graceful  though 
rather  sharp  manner  to  win  his  mother's  heart,  he  found 
her  intrenched  in  the  kitchen,  and  absolutely  indif 
ferent  to  the  charms  of  his  Fanny  in  her  stylish,  albeit 
.somewhat  tawdry,  finery,  though  she  had  peeped  to 
good  purpose  from  her  parlor  window,  which  command 
ed  the  road,  before  she  fled  kitchenward. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  was  beating  eggs  with  as  firm  an  im 
petus  as  if  she  were  heaving  up  earth-works  to  strengthen 
her  own  pride  when  her  son  thrust  his  timid  face  into  the 
kitchen.  "Mother,  Fanny's  in  the  parlor/'  he  said, 
beseechingly. 

"Let  her  set  there,  then,  if  she  wants  to/'  said  his 
mother,  and  that  was  all  she  would  say. 

Very  soon  Fanny  went  home  on  her  lover's  arm, 
freeing  her  mind  with  no  uncertain  voice  on  the  way, 
though  she  was  on  the  public  road,  arid  within  hearing 
of  sharp  ears  in  open  windows.  Fanny  had  a  pride  as 
fierce  as  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster's,  though  it  was  not  so 
well  sustained,  and  she  would  then  and  there  have  re 
fused  to  marry  Andrew  had  she  not  loved  him  with  all 
her  passionate  and  ill-regulated  heart.  But  she  never 
forgave  her  mother-in-law  for  the  slight  she  had  put 
upon  her  that  day,  and  the  slights  which  she  put 
upon  her  later.  She  would  have  refused  to  live  next 

6 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

door  to  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  not  Andrew  owned  the  land 
and  been  in  a  measure  forced  to  build  there.  Every 
time  she  had  flaunted  out  of  her  iiewr  house-door  in  her 
wedding  finery  she  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  of 
defiance  under  a  fire  of  hostile  eyes  in  the  next  house. 
She  kept  her  own  windows  upon  that  side  as  clear  and 
bright  as  diamonds,  and  her  curtains  in  the  stiffest, 
snowy  slants,  lest  her  terrible  mother-in-law  should 
have  occasion  to  impeach  her  housekeeping,  she  being 
a  notable  housewife.  The  habits  of  the  Louds  of  Loud- 
ville  were  considered  shiftless  in  the  extreme,  and  poor 
Fanny  had  heard  an  insinuation  of  Mrs.  Zelotes  to  that 
effect. 

The  elder  Mrs.  Brewster's  knowledge  of  her  son's 
house  and  his  wife  was  limited  to  the  view  from  her 
west  windows,  but  there  was  half -truce  when  little 
Ellen  was  born.  Mrs.  Brewster,  who  considered  that 
no  woman  could  be  obtained  with  such  a  fine  knowledge 
of  nursing  as  she  possessed,  and  who  had,  moreover,  a 
regard  for  her  poor  boy's  pocket-book,  appeared  for 
the  first  time  in  his  doorway,  and  opened  her  heart  to 
her  son's  child,  if  not  to  his  wife,  whom  she  began  to 
tolerate. 

However,  the  two  women  had  almost  a  hand-to-hand 
encounter  over  little  Ellen's  cradle,  the  elder  Mrs.  Brew 
ster  judging  that  it  was  for  her  good  to  be  rocked  to  sleep, 
the  younger  not.  Little  Ellen  herself,  however,  turned 
the  balance  that  time  in  favor  of  her  grandmother,  since 
she  cried  every  time  the  gentle,  swaying  motion  was 
hushed,  and  absolutely  refused  to  go  to  sleep,  and  her 
mother  from  the  first  held  every  course  which  seemed  to 
contribute  to  her  pleasure  and  comfort  as  a  sacred  duty. 
At  last  it  came  to  pass  that  the  two  women  met  only 
upon  that  small  neutral  ground  of  love,  and  upon  all 
other  territory  were  sworn  foes.  Especially  was  Mrs. 
Zelotes  wroth  when  Evei  Loud,  after  the  death  of  her 

7 


THE     PORTION    OF     LABOR 

father,  one  of  the  most  worthless  and  shiftless  of  the 
Louds  of  Loudville,  came  to  live  with  her  married  sister. 
She  spoke  openly  to  Fanny  concerning  her  opinion  of 
another  woman's  coming  to  live  on  poor  Andrew,  and 
paid  no  heed  to  the  assertions  that  Eva  would  work  and 
pay  her  way. 

Mrs.  Zelotes,  although  she  acknowledged  it  no  social 
degradation  for  a  man  to  work  in  a  shoe-factory,  re 
garded  a  woman  who  worked  therein  as  having  hope 
lessly  forfeited  her  caste.  Eva  Loud  had  worked  in  a 
shop  ever  since  she  was  fourteen,  and  had  tagged  the 
grimy  and  leathery  procession  of  Louds,  who  worked 
in  shoe-factories  when  they  worked  at  all,  in  a  short 
skirt  with  her  hair  in  a  strong  black  pigtail.  There  was 
a  kind  of  bold  grace  and  showy  beauty  about  this  Eva 
Loud  which  added  to  Mrs.  Zelotes's  scorn  and  dislike. 

"  She  walks  off  to  work  in  the  shop  as  proud  as  if  she 
was  going  to  a  party,"  she  said,  and  she  fairly  trembled 
with  anger  when  she  saw  the  girl  set  out  with  her  son 
in  the  morning.  She  would  have  considered  it  much 
more  according  to  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  had  her 
son  Andrew  been  attending  a  queen  whom  he  would 
have  dropped  at  her  palace  on  the  way.  She  writhed 
inwardly  whenever  little  Ellen  spoke  of  her  aunt  Eva, 
and  would  have  forbidden  her  to  do  so  had  she  dared. 

"To  think  of  that  child  associating  with  a  shop 
girl!"  she  said  to  Mrs.  Pointdexter.  Mrs.  Pointdexter 
was  her  particular  friend,  whom  she  regarded  with 
loving  tolerance  of  superiority,  though  she  had  been 
the  daughter  of  a  former  clergyman  of  the  town,  and 
had  wedded  another,  and  might  presumably  have  been 
accounted  herself  of  a  somewhat  higher  estate.  The 
gentle  and  dependent  clergyman's  widow,  when  she 
came  back  to  her  native  city  after  the  death  of  her  hus 
band,  found  herself  all  at  once  in  a  pleasant  little  valley 
of  humiliation  at  the  feet  of  her  old  friend,  and  was 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

contented  to  abide  there.  "  Perhaps  your  son's  sister- 
in-law  will  marry  and  go  away/'  she  said,  consolingly, 
to  Mrs.  Zelotes,  who  indeed  lived  in  that  hope.  But 
Eva  remained  at  her  sister's,  and,  though  she  had  ad 
mirers  in  plenty,  did  not  marry,  and  the  dissension 
grew. 

It  was  an  odd  thing  that,  however  the  sisters  quar 
relled,  the  minute  Andrew  tried  to  take  sides  with  his 
wife  and  assail  Eva  in  his  turn,  Fanny  turned  and 
defended  her.  "  I  am  not  going  to  desert  all  the  sister 
I  have  got  in  the  world,"  she  said.  "  If  you  want  me 
to  leave,  say  so,  and  I  will  go,  but  1  shall  never  turn 
Eva  out  of  doors.  I  would  rather  go  with  her  and  work 
in  the  shop."  Then  the  next  moment  the  wrangle 
would  recommence,  and  the  harsh  trebles  of  wrath 
would  swell  high.  Andrew  could  not  appreciate  this 
savageness  of  race  loyalty  in  the  face  of  anger  and 
dissension,  and  his  brain  reeled  with  the  apparent  in 
consistency  of  the  thing. 

"Sometimes  I  think  they  are  both  crazy,"  he  used  to 
tell  his  mother,  who  sympathized  with  him  after  a 
covertly  triumphant  fashion.  She  never  said,  "I 
told  you  so,"  but  the  thought  was  evident  on  her  face, 
and  her  son  saw  it  there. 

However,  he  said  not  a  word  against  his  wife,  except 
by  implication.  Though  she  and  her  sister  were  mak 
ing  his  home  unbearable,  he  still  loved  her,  and,  even 
if  he  did  not,  he  had  something  of  his  mother's  pride. 

However,  at  last,  when  Ellen  was  almost  eight  years 
old,  matters  came  suddenly  to  a  climax  one  evening  in 
November.  The  two  sisters  were  having  a  fiercer  dis 
pute  than  usual.  Eva  was  taking  her  sister  to  task  for 
cutting  over  a  dress  of  hers  for  Ellen,  Fanny  claiming 
that  she  had  given  her  permission  to  do  so,  and  Eva 
denying  it.  The  child  sat  listening  in  her  little  chair 
with  a  look  of  dawning  intelligence  of  wrath  and  wicked 

9 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

temper  in  her  face,  because  she  was  herself  in  a  manner 
the  cause  of  the  dissension.  Suddenly  Andrew  Brew- 
ster,  with  a  fiery  outburst  of  inconsequent  masculine 
wrath  with  the  whole  situation,  essayed  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot.  He  grabbed  the  little  dress  of  bright 
woollen  stuff,  which  lay  partly  made  upon  the  table, 
and  crammed  it  into  the  stove,  and  a  reek  of  burning 
wool  filled  the  room.  Then  both  women  turned  upon 
him  with  a  combination  of  anger  to  which  his  wrath 
was  wildfire. 

Andrew  caught  up  little  Ellen,  who  was  beginning 
to  look  scared,  wrapped  the  first  thing  he  could  seize 
around  her,  and  fairly  fled  across  the  yard  to  his 
mother's.  Then  he  sat  down  and  wept  like  a  boy, 
and  his  pride  left  him  at  last.  "Oh,  mother,"  he 
sobbed,  "  if  it  were  not  for  the  child,  I  would  go  away, 
for  my  home  is  a  hell!" 

Mrs.  Zelotes  stood  clasping  little  Ellen,  who  clung 
to  her,  trembling.  "Well,  come  over  here  with  me/' 
she  said,  "you  and  Ellen." 

"Live  here  in  the  next  house!"  said  Andrew.  "Do 
you  suppose  Fannj^  would  have  the  child  living  under 
her  very  eyes  in  the  next  house?  No,  there  is  no  way 
out  of  the  misery — no  way;  but  if  it  was  not  for  the 
child,  I  would  go!" 

Andrew  burst  out  in  such  wild  sobs  that  his  mother 
released  Ellen  and  ran  to  him ;  and  the  child,  trembling 
and  crying  with  a  curious  softness,  as  of  fear  at  being 
heard,  ran  out  of  the  house  and  back  to  her  home.  "  Oh, 
mother,"  she  cried,  breaking  in  upon  the  dialogue  of 
anger  which  was  still  going  on  there  with  her  little 
tremulous  flute — "oh,  mother,  father  is  crying!" 

"I  don't  care,"  answered  her  mother,  fiercely,  her 
temper  causing  her  to  lose  sight  of  the  child's  agitation. 
"  I  don't  care.  If  it  wasn't  for  you,  I  would  leave  him. 
I  wouldn't  live  as  I  am  doing.  I  would  leave  everybody. 

10 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

I  am  tired  of  this  awful  life.  Oh,  if  it  wasn't  for  you, 
Ellen,  I  would  leave  everybody  and  start  fresh  i" 

"You  can  leave  me  whenever  you  want  to,"  said 
Eva,  her  handsome  face  burning  red  with  wrath,  and 
she  went  out  of  the  room,  which  was  suffocating  with 
the  fumes  of  the  burning  wool,  tossing  her  black  head, 
all  banged  and  coiled  in  the  latest  fashion. 

Of  late  years  Fanny  had  sunk  her  personal  vanity 
further  and  further  in  that  for  her  child.  She  brushed 
her  own  hair  back  hard  from  her  temples,  and  candidly 
revealed  all  her  unyouthful  lines,  and  dwelt  fondly 
upon  the  arrangement  of  little  Ellen's  locks,  which 
were  of  a  fine,  pale  yellow,  as  clear  as  the  color  of  amber. 

She  never  recut  her  skirts  or  her  sleeves,  but  she 
studied  anxiously  all  the  slightest  changes  in  chil 
dren's  fashions.  After  her  sister  had  left  the  room 
with  a  loud  bang  of  the  door,  she  sat  for  a  moment 
gazing  straight  ahead,  her  face  working,  then  she 
burst  into  such  a  passion  of  hysterical  wailing  as  the 
child  had  never  heard.  Ellen,  watching  her  mother 
with  eyes  so  frightened  and  full  of  horror  that  there 
was  no  room  for  childish  love  and  pity  in  them,  grew 
very  pale.  She  had  left  the  door  by  which  she  had 
entered  open ;  she  gazed  one  moment  at  her  mother, 
then  she  turned  and  slipped  out  of  the  room,  and,  open 
ing  the  outer  door  softly,  though  her  mother  would 
not  have  heard  nor  noticed,  went  out  of  the  house. 

Then  she  ran  as  fast  as  she  could  down  the  frozen 
road,  a  little,  dark  figure,  passing  as  rapidly  as  the 
shadow  of  a  cloud  between  the  earth  and  the  full  moon. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  greatest  complexity  in  the  world  attends  the 
motive-power  of  any  action.  Infinite  perspectives  of 
mental  mirrors  reflect  the  whys  of  all  doing.  An  adult 
with  long  practice  in  analytic  introspection  soon  be 
comes  bewildered  when  he  strives  to  evolve  the  primary 
and  fundamental  reasons  for  his  deeds;  a  child  so 
striving  would  be  lost  in  unexpected  depths;  but  a 
child  never  strives.  A  child  obeys  unquestioningly 
and  absolutely  its  own  spiritual  impellings  without 
a  backward  glance  at  them. 

Little  Ellen  Brewster  ran  down  the  road  that  Novem 
ber  night,  and  did  not  know  then,  and  never  knew 
afterwards,  why  she  ran.  Loving  renunciation  was 
surging  high  in  her  childish  heart,  giving  an  indication 
of  tidal  possibilities  for  the  future,  and  there  was  also  a 
bitter,  angry  hurt  of  slighted  dependency  and  affection. 
Had  she  not  heard  them  say,  her  own  mother  and  father 
say,  that  they  would  be  better  off  and  happier  with  her 
out  of  the  way,  and  she  their  dearest  loved  and  most 
carefully  cherished  possession  in  the  whole  world?  It 
is  a  cruel  fall  for  an  apple  of  the  eye  to  the  ground,  for 
its  law  of  gravitation  is  of  the  soul,  and  its  fall  shocks 
the  infinite.  Little  Ellen  felt  herself  sorely  hurt  by  her 
fall  from  such  fair  heights;  she  was  pierced  by  the 
sharp  thorns  of  selfish  interests  which  nourish  below  all 
the  heavenward  windows  of  life. 

Afterwards,  when  her  mother  and  father  tried  to  make 
her  tell  them  why  she  ran  away,  she  could  not  say; 
the  answer  was  beyond  her  own  power. 

12 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

There  was  no  snow  on  the  ground,  but  the  earth  was 
frozen  in  great  ribs  after  a  late  thaw.  Ellen  ran  pain 
fully  between  the  ridges  \vhich  a  long  line  of  ice-wagons 
had  made  with  their  heav}^  wheels  earlier  in  the  day. 
When  the  spaces  between  the  ridges  were  too  narrow 
for  her  little  feet,  she  ran  along  the  crests,  and  that  was 
precarious.  She  fell  once  and  bruised  one  of  her  delicate 
knees,  then  she  fell  again,  and  struck  the  knee  on  the 
same  place.  It  hurt  her,  and  she  caught  her  breath 
with  a  gasp  of  pain.  She  pulled  up  her  little  frock  and 
touched  her  hand  to  her  knee,  and  felt  it  wet,  then  she 
whimpered  on  the  lonely  road,  and,  curiousty  enough, 
there  was  pity  for  her  mother  as  well  as  for  herself  in 
her  solitary  grieving.  "Mother  would  feel  pretty  bad 
if  she  knew  how  I  was  hurt,  enough  to  make  it  bleed," 
she  murmured,  between  her  soft  sobs.  Ellen  did  not 
dare  cry  loudly,  from  a  certain  unvoiced  fear  which 
she  had  of  shocking  the  stillness  of  the  night,  and 
also  from  a  delicate  sense  of  personal  dignity,  and  a 
dislike  of  violent  manifestations  of  feeling  which  had 
strengthened  with  her  growth  in  the  midst  of  the  tur 
bulent  atmosphere  of  her  home.  Ellen  had  the  softest 
childish  voice,  and  she  never  screamed  or  shouted  when 
excited.  Instead  of  catching  the  motion  of  the  \vind, 
she  still  lay  before  it,  like  some  slender- stemmed  flo\ver. 
If  Ellen  had  made  much  outcry  with  the  hurt  in  her 
heart  and  the  smart  of  her  knee,  she  might  have  been 
heard,  for  the  locality  was  thick!}1-  settled,  though  not 
in  the  business  portion  of  the  little  city.  The  houses, 
set  prosperously  in  the  midst  of  shaven  lawrns — for  this 
was  a  thrifty  and  emulative  place,  and  democracy  held 
up  its  head  confidently — were  built  closely  along  the 
road,  though  that  was  lonely  and  deserted  at  that  hour. 
It  was  the  hour  between  half-past  six  and  half-past 
seven,  when  people  were  lingering  at  their  supper-tables, 
and  had  not  yet  started  upon  their  evening  pursuits. 

13 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

The  lights  shone  for  the  most  part  from  the  rear  windows 
of  the  houses,  and  there  was  a  vague  compound  odor 
of  tea  and  bread  and  beefsteak  in  the  air.  Poor  Ellen 
had  not  had  her  .supper;  the  wrangle  at  home  had  dis 
missed  it  from  everybody's  mind-  She  felt  more  pitiful 
towards  her  mother  and  herself  when  she  smelt  the 
food  and  reflected  upon  that.  To  think  of  her  going 
away  without  any  supper,  all  alone  in  the  dark  night! 
There  was  no  moon,  and  the  solemn  brilliancy  of  the 
stars  made  her  think  with  a  shiver  of  awe  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  possibility  of  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
Suppose  it  should  come,  and  she  all  alone  out  in  the 
night,  in  the  midst  of  all  those  worlds  and  the  great 
White  Throne,  without  her  mother?  Ellen's  grand 
mother,  who  was  of  a  stanch  orthodox  breed,  and  was, 
moreover,  anxious  to  counteract  any  possible  detriment 
as  to  religious  training  from  contact  with  the  degenerate 
Louds  of  Loudville,  had  established  a  strict  course  of 
Bible  study  for  her  granddaughter  at  a  very  early  age. 
All  celestial  phenomena  were,  in  consequence  trans 
posed  into  a  Biblical  kejT  for  the  child,  and  she  regarded 
the  heavens  swarming  with  golden  stars  as  a  Hebrew 
child  of  a  thousand  years  ago  might  have  done. 

She  was  glad  when  she  came  within  the  radius  of  a 
street  light  from  time  to  time;  they  were  stationed  at 
wide  intervals  in  that  neighborhood.  Soon,  however, 
she  reached  the  factories,  when  all  mystery  and  awe, 
and  vague  terrors  of  what  beside  herself  might  be  near 
unrevealed  beneath  the  mighty  brooding  of  the  night, 
were  over.  She  was,  as  it  were,  in  the  mid-current  of 
the  conditions  of  her  own  life  and  times,  and  the  material 
force  of  it  swept  away  all  symbolisms  and  unstable 
drift,  and  left  only  the  bare  rocks  and  shores  of  exist 
ence.  Always  when  the  child  had  been  taken  bv  one 
of  her  elders  past  the  factories,  humming  like  gigantic 
hives,  with  their  windows  alert  with  eager  eves  ~f  '  -1 

ts  ».  j      y\  -     •> 

M 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

glancing  out  at  her  over  bench  and  machine,  Ellen 
had  seen  her  secretly  cherished  imaginings  recede  into 
a  night  of  distance  like  stars,  and  she  had  felt  her  little 
footing  upon  the  earth  with  a  shock,  and  had  clung 
more  closely  to  the  leading  hand  of  love.  "That's 
where  your  poor  father  works/'  her  grandmother  would 
say.  "Maybe  you'll  have  to  work  there  some  day," 
her  aunt  Eva  had  said  once;  and  her  mother,  who  had 
been  with  her  also,  had  cried  out  sharply  as  if  she  had 
been  stung,  "I  guess  that  little  delicate  thing  ain't 
never  goin'  to  work  in  a  shoe-shop,  Eva  Loud."  And 
her  aunt  Eva  had  laughed,  and  declared  with  emphasis 
that  she  guessed  there  was  no  need  to  worry  yet  awhile. 

"  She  never  shall,  while  I  live,"  her  mother  had  cried  ; 
and  then  Eva,  coming  to  her  sister's  aid  against  her 
own  suggestion,  had  declared,  with  a  vehemence  which 
frightened  Ellen,  that  she  would  burn  the  shop  down 
herself  first. 

As  for  Ellen's  father,  he  never  at  that  time  dwelt 
upon  the  child's  future  as  much  as  his  wife  did,  having  a 
masculine  sense  of  the  instability  of  houses  of  air  which 
prevented  him  from  entering  them  without  a  shivering 
of  walls  and  roof  into  naught  but  star-mediums  by  his 
downrightness  of  vision.  "Oh,  let  the  child  be,  can't 
you,  Fanny?"  he  said,  when  his  w^ife  speculated  whether 
Ellen  would  be  or  do  this  or  that  when  she  should  be  a 
woman.  He  resented  the  conception  of  the  woman 
which  would  swallow  up,  like  some  metaphysical  sorcer 
ess,  his  fair  little  child.  So  when  he  now  and  then 
led  Ellen  past  the  factories  it  was  never  with  the  slightest 
surmise  as  to  any  connection  which  she  might  have 
with  them  beyond  the  present  one.  "  There's  the  shop 
where  father  works,"  he  would  tell  Ellen,  with  a  tender 
sense  of  his  own  importance  in  his  child's  eyes,  and  he 
was  as  proud  as  Punch  when  Ellen  was  able  to  point 
>ier  tiny  pmk  finger  at  the  window  where  father 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

worked.  "  That's  where  father  works  and  earns  money 
to  buy  nice  things  for  little  Ellen,"  Andrew  would 
repeat,  beaming  at  her  with  divine  foolishness,  and 
Ellen  looked  at  the  roaring,  vibrating  building  as  she 
might  have  looked  at  the  wheels  of  progress.  She 
realized  that  her  father  was  very  great  and  smart  to 
work  in  a  place  like  that,  and  earn  money — so  much 
of  it.  Ellen  often  heard  her  mother  remark  with  pride 
how  much  money  Andrew  earned. 

To-night,  when  Ellen  passed  in  her  strange  flight, 
the  factories  were  still,  though  they  were  yet  blazing 
with  light.  The  gigantic  buildings,  after  a  style  of 
architecture  as  simple  as  a  child's  block  house,  and 
adapted  to  as  primitive  an  end,  loomed  up  beside  the 
road  like  windowed  shells  enclosing  massive  concrete- 
nesses  of  golden  light.  They  looked  entirely  vacant 
except  for  light,  for  the  workmen  had  all  gone  home, 
and  there  were  only  the  keepers  in  the  buildings.  There 
were  three  of  them,  representing  three  different  firms, 
rival  firms,  grouped  curiously  close  together,  but  Lloyd's 
was  much  the  largest.  Andrew  and  Eva  worked  in 
Lloyd's. 

She  was  near  the  last  factory  \vhen  she  met  a  man 
hastening  along  with  bent  shoulders,  of  intent,  middle- 
aged  progress.  After  he  had  passed  her  with  a  careless 
glance  at  the  small,  swift  figure,  she  smelt  coffee.  Pie 
was  carrying  home  a  pound  for  his  breakfast  supply. 
That  suddenly  made  her  cry,  though  she  did  not  know 
why.  That  familiar  odor  of  home  and  the  wontedness 
of  life  made  her  isolation  on  her  little  atom  of  the  un 
usual  more  pitiful.  The  man  turned  round  sharply 
when  she  sobbed.  "Hullo!  what's  the  matter,  sis?" 
he  called  back,  in  a  pleasant,  hoarse  voice.  Ellen  did 
not  answer;  she  fled  as  if  she  had  wings  on  her  feet. 
The  man  had  many  children  of  his  own,  and  was  ac 
customed  to  their  turbulence  over  trifles.  He  kept  on, 

16 


THE     PORTION    OF     LABOR 

thinking  that  there  was  a  sulky  child  who  had  been  sent 
on  an  errand  against  her  will,  that  it  was  not  late,  and 
she  was  safe  enough  on  that  road.  He  resumed  his 
calculation  as  to  whether  his  income  would  admit  of  a 
new  coal-stove  that  winter.  He  wras  a  workman  in  a 
factory,  with  one  accumulative  interest  in  life — coal- 
stoves.  He  bought  and  traded  and  swapped  coal- 
stoves  every  winter  with  keenest  enthusiasm.  Now 
he  had  one  in  his  mind  which  he  had  just  viewed  in  a 
window  with  the  rapture  of  an  artist.  It  had  a  little 
nickel  statuette  on  the  top,  and  that  quite  crowded  Ellen 
out  of  his  mind,  which  had  but  narrow  accommodations. 
So  Ellen  kept  on  unmolested,  though  her  heart  was 
beating  loud  with  fright.  When  she  came  into  the 
brilliantly  lighted  stretch  of  Main  Street,  which  was  the 
business  centre  of  the  city,  her  childish  mind  was  partly 
diverted  from  herself.  Ellen  had  not  been  down  town 
many  times  of  an  evening,  and  always  in  hand  of  her 
hurrying  father  or  mother.  Now  she  had  run  away 
and  cut  loose  from  all  restrictions  of  time ;  there  was  an 
eternity  for  observation  before  her,  with  no  call  in-doors 
in  prospect.  She  stopped  at  the  first  bright  shop  win 
dow,  and  suddenly  the  exultation  of  freedom  was  over 
the  child.  She  tasted  the  sweets  of  rebellion  and  dis 
obedience.  She  had  stood  before  that  window  once 
before  of  an  evening,  and  her  aunt  Eva  had  been  with 
her,  and  one  of  her  young  men  friends  had  come 
up  behind,  and  they  had  gone  on,  the  child  dragging 
backward  at  her  aunt's  hand.  Now  she  could  stand  as 
long  as  she  wished,  and  stare  and  stare,  and  drink  in 
everything  which  her  childish  imagination  craved, 
and  that  was  much.  The  imagination  of  a  child  is 
often  like  a  voracious  maw,  seizing  upon  all  that  comes 
within  reach,  and  producing  spiritual  indigestions  and 
assimilations  almost  endless  in  their  effects  upon  the 
growth.  This  window  before  which  Ellen  stood  was 

17 


THE    PORTION     OF    LABOR 

that  of  a  market :  a  great  expanse  of  plate-glass  fram 
ing  a  crude  study  in  the  clearest  color  tones.  It  takes 
a  child  or  an  artist  to  see  a  picture  without  the  intru 
sion  of  its  second  dimension  of  sordid  use  and  the  gross 
reflection  of  humanity. 

Ellen  looked  at  the  great  shelf  laid  upon  with  flesh 
and  vegetables  and  fruits  with  the  careless  precision 
of  a  kaleidoscope,  and  did  not  for  one  instant  connect 
anything  thereon  with  the  ends  of  physical  appetite, 
though  she  had  not  had  her  supper.  What  had  a  meal 
of  beefsteak  and  potatoes  and  squash  served  on  the 
little  white-laid  table  at  home  to  do  with  those  great 
golden  globes  which  made  one  end  of  the  window  like 
the  remove  from  a  mine,  those  satin-smooth  spheres, 
those  cuts  as  of  red  and  white  marble?  She  had  eaten 
apples,  but  these  were  as  the  apples  of  the  gods,  lying 
in  a  heap  of  opulence,  with  a  precious  light-spot  like 
a  ruby  on  every  outward  side.  The  turnips  affected 
her  imagination  like  ivory  carvings :  she  did  not  rec 
ognize  them  for  turnips  at  all.  She  never  afterwards 
believed  them  to  be  turnips ;  and  as  for  cabbages,  they 
were  green  inflorescences  of  majestic  bloom.  There 
is  one  position  from  which  all  common  things  can  be 
seen  with  reflections  of  preciousness,  and  Ellen  had 
insensibly  taken  it.  The  window  and  the  shop  behind 
were  illuminated  with  the  yellow  glare  of  gas,  but  the 
glass  was  filmed  here  and  there  with  frost,  which  tem 
pered  it  as  with  a  veil.  In  the  background  rosy-faced 
men  in  white  frocks  were  moving  to  and  fro,  customers 
were  passing  in  and  out,  but  they  were  all  glorified  to 
the  child.  She  did  not  see  them  as  butchers,  and  as 
men  and  women  selling  and  buying  dinners. 

However,  all  at  once  everything  was  spoiled,  for  her 
fairy  castle  of  illusion  or  a  higher  reality  was  demolished, 
and  that  not  by  any  blow  of  practicality,  but  by  pity 
and  sentiment.  Ellen  was  a  woman-child,  and  suddenly 

18 


THE     PORTION    OF    L  A  B  O  ll 

she  struck  the  rock  upon  which  women  so  often  wreck 
or  effect  harbor,  whichever  it  may  be.  All  at  once  she 
looked  up  from  the  dazzling  mosaic  of  the  window  and 
saw  the  dead  partridges  and  grouse  hanging  in  their 
rumpled  brown  mottle  of  plumage,  and  the  dead  rabbits, 
long  and  stark,  with  their  fur  pointed  with  frost,  hanging 
in  a  piteous  headlong  company,  and  all  her  delight  and 
wonder  vanished,  and  she  came  down  to  the  hard  ac 
tualities  of  things.  "Oh,  the  poor  birds!"  she  cried 
out  in  her  heart.  "Oh,  the  poor  birds,  and  the  poor 
bunnies!" 

Just  at  that  moment,  when  the  sudden  rush  of  com 
passion  and  indignation  had  swollen  her  heart  to  the 
size  of  a  woman's,  and  given  it  the  aches  of  one,  when 
her  eyes  were  so  dilated  with  the  sight  of  helpless  injury 
and  death  that  they  reflected  the  mystery  of  it  and  lost 
the  outlook  of  childhood,  when  her  pretty  baby  mouth 
was  curved  like  an  inverted  bow  of  love  with  the  im 
pulse  of  tears,  Cynthia  Lennox  came  up  the  street  and 
stopped  short  when  she  reached  her. 

Suddenly  Ellen  felt  some  one  pressing  close  to  her, 
and,  looking  up,  saw  a  woman,  only  middle-aged,  but 
whom  she  thought  very  old,  because  her  hair  was  white, 
standing  looking  at  her  very  keenly  with  clear,  light- 
blue  eyes  under  a  high,  pale  forehead,  from  which  the 
gray  hair  was  combed  uncompromisingly  back.  The 
woman  had  been  a  beauty  once,  of  a  delicate,  nervous 
type,  and  had  a  certain  beauty  now,  a  something  which 
had  endured  like  the  fineness  of  texture  of  a  web  when 
its  glow  of  color  has  faded.  Her  black  garments  draped 
her  with  sober  richness,  and  there  was  a  gleam  of  dark 
fur  when  the  wind  caught  her  cloak.  A  small  tuft  of 
ostrich  plumes  nodded  from  her  bonnet.  Ellen  smelt 
flowers  vaguely,  and  looked  at  the  lady's  hand,  but  she 
did  not  carry  any. 

"Whose  little  girl  are  you?"  Cynthia  Lennox  asked, 

19 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

softly,  and  Ellen  did  not  answer.  "  Can't  you  tell  me 
whose  little  girl  you  are?"  Cynthia  Lennox  asked  again. 
Ellen  did  not  speak,  but  there  was  the  swift  flicker  of  a 
thought  over  her  face  which  told  her  name  as  plainly  as 
language  if  the  woman  had  possessed  the  skill  to  in 
terpret  it. 

"Ellen  Brewster — Ellen  Brewster  is  my  name/'  Ellen 
said  to  herself  very  hard,  and  that  was  how  she  endured 
the  reproach  of  her  own  silence. 

The  woman  looked  at  her  with  surprise  and  admira 
tion  that  were  fairly  passionate.  Ellen  was  a  beautiful 
child,  with  a  face  like  a  white  flower.  People  had  al 
ways  turned  to  look  after  her,  she  was  so  charming, 
and  had  caused  her  mother's  heart  to  swell  with  pride. 
"  The  way  everybody  we  met  has  stared  after  that  child 
to-day!"  she  would  whisper  her  husband  when  she 
brought  Ellen  home  from  some  little  expedition;  then 
the  two  would  look  at  the  little  one's  face  with  the  one 
holy  vanity  of  the  world.  Ellen  wore  to-night  the  little 
white  shawl  which  her  father  had  caught  up  when  he 
carried  her  over  to  her  grandmother's.  She  held  it 
tightly  together  under  her  chin  with  one  tiny  hand,  and 
her  face  looked  out  from  between  the  soft  folds  with  the 
absolute  purity  of  curve  and  color  of  a  pearl. 

"Oh,  you  darling!"  said  the  woman,  suddenly; 
"you  darling!"  and  Ellen  shrank  away  from  her. 
"  Don't  be  afraid,  dear,"  said  Cynthia  Lennox.  "  Don't 
be  afraid,  only  tell  me  who  you  are.  What  is  your  name, 
dear?"  But  Ellen  remained  silent ;  only,  as  she  shrank 
aloof,  her  eyes  grew  wild  and  bright  with  startled  tears, 
and  her  sweet  baby  mouth  quivered  piteously.  She 
wanted  to  run,  but  the  habit  of  obedience  was  so  strong 
upon  her  little  mind  that  she  feared  to  do  so.  This 
strange  woman  seemed  to  have  gotten  her  in  some 
invisible  leash. 

"Tell  me  what  your  name  is,  darling,"  said  the 
20 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

woman,  but  she  might  as  well  have  importuned  a  flower. 
Ellen  was  proof  against  all  commands  in  that  direction. 
She  suddenly  felt  the  furry  sweep  of  the  lady's  cloak 
against  her  cheek,  and  a  nervous,  tender  arm  drawing 
her  close,  though  she  strove  feebly  to  resist.  "  You 
are  cold,  you  have  nothing  on  but  this  little  white  shawl, 
and  perhaps  you  are  hungry.  What  were  you  looking 
in  this  window  for  ?  Tell  me,  dear,  where  is  your  mother  ? 
She  did  not  send  you  on  an  errand,  such  a  little  girl 
as  you  are,  so  late  on  such  a  cold  night,  with  no  more 
on  than  this?" 

A  tone  of  indignation  crept  into  the  lady's  voice. 

"No,  mother  didn't  send  me,"  Ellen  said,  speaking 
for  the  first  time. 

"Then  did  you  run  away,  dear?"  Ellen  was  silent. 
"Oh,  if  you  did,  darling,  you  must  tell  me  where  you 
live,  what  your  father's  name  is,  and  I  will  take  you 
home.  Tell  me,  dear.  If  it  is  far,  I  will  get  a  carriage, 
and  you  shall  ride  home.  Tell  me,  dear." 

There  wras  an  utmost  sweetness  of  maternal  persuasion 
in  Cynthia  Lennox's  voice;  Ellen  was  swayed  by  it  as  a 
child  might  have  been  swayed  by  the  magic  pipe  of  the 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin.  She  half  yielded  to  her  lead 
ing  motion,  then  she  remembered.  "  No,"  she  cried  out, 
with  a  sob  of  utter  desolation.  "  No,  no." 

"Why  not,  dear?" 

"  They  don't  want ;  they  don't  want.     No,  no  I" 

"  They  don't  want  you?  Your  own  father  and  mother 
don't  want  you?  Darling,  what  is  the  matter?"  But 
Ellen  was  dumb  again.  She  stood  sobbing,  with  a 
painful  restraint,  and  pulling  futilely  from  the  lady's 
persuasive  hand.  But  it  ended  in  the  mastery  of  the 
child.  Suddenly  Cynthia  Lennox  gathered  her  up 
in  her  arms  under  her  great  fur-lined  cloak,  and  carried 
her  a  little  farther  down  the  street,  then  across  it  to  a 
dwelling-house,  one  of  the  very  few  wrhich  had  with- 

21 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stood  the  inarch  of  business  blocks  on  this  crowded  main 
street  of  the  provincial  city.  A  few  people  looked  curi 
ously  at  the  lady  carrying  such  a  heavy,  weeping  child, 
but  she  met  no  one  whom  she  knew,  and  the  others 
looked  indifferently  away  after  a  second  backward 
stare.  Cynthia  Lennox  was  one  to  bear  herself  with 
such  dignity  over  all  jolts  of  circumstances  that  she 
might  almost  convince  others  of  her  own  exemption 
from  them.  Her  mental  bearing  disproved  the  evi 
dence  of  the  senses,  and  she  could  have  committed  a 
crime  with  such  consummate  self-poise  and  grace  as 
to  have  held  a  crowd  in  abeyance  with  utter  distrust 
of  their  own  eyes  before  such  unquestioning  confidence 
in  the  sovereignty  of  the  situation.  Cynthia  Lennox 
had  always  had  her  own  way  except  in  one  respect, 
and  that  experience  had  come  to  her  lately. 

Though  she  was  such  a  slender  woman,  she  seemed 
to  have  great  strength  in  her  arms,  and  she  bore  Ellen 
easily  and  as  if  she  had  been  used  to  such  a  burden. 
She  wrapped  her  cloak  closely  around  the  child. 

"Don't  be  afraid,  darling,"  she  kept  whispering. 
Ellen  panted  in  bewilderment,  and  a  terror  which  was 
half  assuaged  by  something  like  fascination. 

She  was  conscious  of  a  soft  smother  of  camphor,  in 
which  the  fur-lined  cloak  had  lain  through  the  summer, 
and  of  that  flower  odor,  which  was  violets,  though  she 
did  not  know  it.  Only  the  wild  American  scentless  ones 
had  come  in  little  Ellen's  way  so  far. 

She  felt  herself  carried  up  steps,  then  a  door  was 
thrown  open,  and  a  warm  breath  of  air  came  in  her  face, 
and  the  cloak  was  tossed  back,  and  she  was  set  softly 
on  the  floor.  The  hall  in  which  she  stood  seemed  very 
bright ;  she  blinked  and  rubbed  her  eyes. 

The  lady  stood  over  her,  laughing  gently,  and  when 
the  child  looked  up  at  her,  seemed  much  younger  than 
she  had  at  first,  very  young  in  spite  of  her  white  hair. 

22 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

There  was  a  soft  red  on  her  cheek;  her  lips  looked  full 
and  triumphant  with  smiles;  her  eyes  were  like  stars. 
An  emotion  of  her  youth  \vhich  had  never  become  dulled 
by  satisfaction  had  suddenly  blossomed  out  on  her 
face,  and  transformed  it.  An  unassuaged  longing 
may  serve  to  preserve  youth  as  well  as  an  unclestroyed 
illusion;  indeed,  the  two  are  one.  Cynthia  Lennox 
looked  at  the  child  as  if  she  had  been  a  young  mother, 
and  she  her  first-born;  triumph  over  the  future,  and 
daring  for  all  odds,  and  perfect  faith  in  the  kingdom  of 
joy  were  in  her  look.  Had  she  nursed  one  child  like 
Ellen  to  womanhood,  and  tasted  the  bitter  in  the  cup, 
she  would  not  have  been  capable  of  that  look,  and  would 
have  been  as  old  as  her  years.  She  threw  off  her  cloak 
and  took  off  her  bonnet,  and  the  light  struck  her  hair  and 
made  it  look  like  silver.  A  brooch  in  the  laces  at  her 
throat  shone  with  a  thousand  hues,  and  as  Ellen  gazed 
at  it  she  felt  curiously  dull  and  dizzy.  She  did  not  re 
sist  at  all  when  the  lady  removed  her  little  white  shawl, 
but  stared  at  her  with  the  look  of  some  small  and  help 
less  thing  in  too  large  a  grasp  of  destiny  to  admit  of  a 
struggle.  "Oh,  you  darling!"  Cynthia  Lennox  said, 
and  stooped  and  kissed  her,  and  half  carried  her  into  a 
great,  warm,  dazzling  room,  with  light  reflected  in  long 
lines  of  gold  from  picture-frames  on  the  wall,  and  now 
and  then  startling  patches  of  lurid  color  blazing  forth 
unmeaningly  from  the  dark  incline  of  their  canvases, 
writh  gleams  of  crystal  and  shadows  of  bronze  in  set 
tings  of  fretted  ebony,  with  long  s\vayings  of  rich 
draperies  at  doors  and  windows,  a  red  light  of  fire  in 
a  grate,  and  twro  white  lights,  one  of  piano  keys,  the 
other  of  a  flying  marble  figure  in  a  corner,  outlined 
clearly  against  dusky  red.  The  light  in  this  room  was 
very  dim.  It  was  all  beyond  Ellen's  imagination.  The 
White  North  \vhere  the  Norway  spruces  lived  would  not 
have  seemed  as  strange  to  her  as  this.  Neither  would 

23 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Bluebeard's  Castle,  nor  the  House  that  Jack  Built,  nor 
the  Palace  of  King  Solomon,  nor  the  tent  in  which 
lived  little  Joseph  in  his  coat  of  many  colors,  nor  even 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  nor  Noah's  Ark.  Her  imagina 
tion  had  not  prepared  her  for  a  room  like  this.  She 
had  formed  her  ideas  of  rooms  upon  her  grandmoth 
er's  and  her  mother's  and  the  neighbors'  best  parlors, 
with  their  glories  of  crushed  plush  and  gilt  and  onyx 
and  cheap  lace  and  picture  -  throws  and  lambrequins. 
This  room  was  such  a  heterodoxy  against  her  creed 
of  civilization  that  it  did  not  look  beautiful  to  her  as 
much  as  strange  and  bewildering,  and  when  she  was 
bidden  to  sit  down  in  a  little  inlaid  precious  chair  she 
put  down  her  tiny  hand  and  reflected,  with  a  sense  of 
strengthening  of  her  household  faith,  that  her  grand 
mother  had  beautiful,  smooth,  shiny  hair-cloth. 

Cynthia  Lennox  pulled  the  chair  close  to  the  fire, 
and  bade  her  hold  out  her  little  feet  to  the  blaze  to  warm 
them  well.  "I  am  afraid  j^ou  are  chilled,  darling," 
she  said,  and  looked  at  her  sitting  there  in  her  dainty 
little  red  cashmere  frock,  with  her  spread  of  baby-3'ellow 
hair  over  her  shoulders.  Then  Ellen  thought  that  the 
lady  was  younger  than  her  mother ;  but  her  mother  had 
borne  her  and  nursed  her,  and  suffered  and  eaten  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  tasted  the  bitter  after  the 
sweet ;  and  this  other  woman  was  but  as  a  child  in  the 
garden,  though  she  was  fairly  old.  But  along  with 
Ellen's  conviction  of  the  lady's  youth  had  come  a  con 
viction  of  her  power,  and  she  yielded  to  her  unques- 
tioningly.  Whenever  she  came  near  her  she  gazed 
with  dilating  eyes  upon  the  blazing  circle  of  diamonds 
at  her  throat. 

When  she  was  bidden,  she  followed  the  lady  into  the 
dining-room,  where  the  glitter  of  glass  and  silver  and 
the  soft  gleam  of  precious  china  made  her  think  for  a 
little  while  that  she  must  be  in  a  store.  She  had  never 

24 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

seen  anything  like  this  except  in  a  store,  when  she  had 
been  with  her  mother  to  buy  a  lamp-chimney.  So  she 
decided  this  to  be  a  store,  but  she  said  nothing.  She 
did  not  speak  at  all,  but  she  ate  her  biscuits,  and  slice 
of  breast  of  chicken,  and  sponge-cake,  and  drank  her 
milk. 

She  had  her  milk  in  a  little  silver  cup  which  seemed 
as  if  it  might  have  belonged  to  another  child;  she  also 
sat  in  a  small  high-chair,  which  made  it  seem  as  if  an 
other  child  had  lived  or  visited  in  the  house.  Ellen 
became  singularly  possessed  with  this  sense  of  the  pres 
ence  of  a  child,  and  when  the  door  opened  she  would 
look  around  for  her  to  enter,  but  it  was  always  an  old 
black  woman  with  a  face  of  imperturbable  bronze,  which 
caused  her  to  huddle  closer  into  her  chair  when  she  drew 
near. 

There  were  not  many  colored  people  in  the  city,  and 
Ellen  had  never  seen  any  except  at  Long  Beach,  where 
she  had  sometimes  gone  to  have  a  shore  dinner  with 
her  mother  and  Aunt  Eva.  Then  she  always  used  to 
shrink  when  the  black  waiter  drew  near,  and  her  mother 
and  aunt  would  be  convulsed  with  furtive  mirth.  "  See 
the  little  gump,"  her  mother  would  say  in  the  tenderest 
tone,  and  look  about  to  see  if  others  at  the  other  tables 
saw  how  cunning  she  was — what  a  charming  little 
goose  to  be  afraid  of  a  colored  waiter. 

Ellen  saw  nobody  except  the  lady  and  the  black 
woman,  but  she  was  still  sure  that  there  was  a  child  in 
the  house,  and  after  supper,  when  she  was  taken  up 
stairs  to  bed,  she  peeped  through  every  open  door  with 
the  expectation  of  seeing  her. 

But  she  was  so  weary  and  sleepy  that  her  curiosity 
and  capacity  for  any  other  emotion  was  blunted.  She 
had  become  simply  a  little,  tired,  sleepy  animal.  She 
let  herself  be  undressed;  she  was  not  even  moved  to 
much  self-pity  when  the  lady  discovered  the  cruel 

25 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Bluebeard's  Castle,  nor  the  House  that  Jack  Built,  nor 
the  Palace  of  King  Solomon,  nor  the  tent  in  which 
lived  little  Joseph  in  his  coat  of  many  colors,  nor  even 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  nor  Noah's  Ark.  Her  imagina 
tion  had  not  prepared  her  for  a  room  like  this.  She 
had  formed  her  ideas  of  rooms  upon  her  grandmoth 
er's  and  her  mother's  and  the  neighbors'  best  parlors, 
with  their  glories  of  crushed  plush  and  gilt  and  onyx 
and  cheap  lace  and  picture  -  throws  and  lambrequins. 
This  room  was  such  a  heterodoxy  against  her  creed 
of  civilization  that  it  did  not  look  beautiful  to  her  as 
much  as  strange  and  bewildering,  and  when  she  was 
bidden  to  sit  down  in  a  little  inlaid  precious  chair  she 
put  down  her  tiny  hand  and  reflected,  with  a  sense  of 
strengthening  of  her  household  faith,  that  her  grand 
mother  had  beautiful,  smooth,  shiny  hair-cloth. 

Cynthia  Lennox  pulled  the  chair  close  to  the  fire, 
and  bade  her  hold  out  her  little  feet  to  the  blaze  to  warm 
them  well.  "I  am  afraid  you  are  chilled,  darling," 
she  said,  and  looked  at  her  sitting  there  in  her  dainty 
little  red  cashmere  frock,  with  her  spread  of  baby-yellow 
hair  over  her  shoulders.  Then  Ellen  thought  that  the 
lady  was  younger  than  her  mother ;  but  her  mother  had 
borne  her  and  nursed  her,  and  suffered  and  eaten  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  tasted  the  bitter  after  the 
sweet ;  and  this  other  woman  was  but  as  a  child  in  the 
garden,  though  she  was  fairly  old.  But  along  with 
Ellen's  conviction  of  the  lady's  youth  had  come  a  con 
viction  of  her  power,  and  she  yielded  to  her  unques- 
tioningly.  Whenever  she  came  near  her  she  gazed 
with  dilating  eyes  upon  the  blazing  circle  of  diamonds 
at  her  throat. 

When  she  was  bidden,  she  followed  the  lady  into  the 
dining-room,  where  the  glitter  of  glass  and  silver  and 
the  soft  gleam  of  precious  china  made  her  think  for  a 
little  while  that  she  must  be  in  a  store.  She  had  never 

24 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

seen  anything  like  this  except  in  a  store,  when  she  had 
been  with  her  mother  to  buy  a  lamp-chimney.  So  she 
decided  this  to  be  a  store,  but  she  said  nothing.  She 
did  not  speak  at  all,  but  she  ate  her  biscuits,  and  slice 
of  breast  of  chicken,  and  sponge-cake,  and  drank  her 
milk. 

She  had  her  milk  in  a  little  silver  cup  which  seemed 
as  if  it  might  have  belonged  to  another  child;  she  also 
sat  in  a  small  high-chair,  which  made  it  seem  as  if  an 
other  child  had  lived  or  visited  in  the  house.  Ellen 
became  singularly  possessed  with  this  sense  of  the  pres 
ence  of  a  child,  and  when  the  door  opened  she  would 
look  around  for  her  to  enter,  but  it  was  always  an  old 
black  woman  with  a  face  of  imperturbable  bronze,  which 
caused  her  to  huddle  closer  into  her  chair  when  she  drew 
near. 

There  were  not  many  colored  people  in  the  city,  and 
Ellen  had  never  seen  any  except  at  Long  Beach,  where 
she  had  sometimes  gone  to  have  a  shore  dinner  with 
her  mother  and  Aunt  Eva.  Then  she  always  used  to 
shrink  when  the  black  waiter  drew  near,  and  her  mother 
and  aunt  would  be  convulsed  with  furtive  mirth.  "  See 
the  little  gump/'  her  mother  would  say  in  the  tenderest 
tone,  and  look  about  to  see  if  others  at  the  other  tables 
saw  how  cunning  she  was — what  a  charming  little 
goose  to  be  afraid  of  a  colored  waiter. 

Ellen  saw  nobody  except  the  lady  and  the  black 
woman,  but  she  was  still  sure  that  there  was  a  child  in 
the  house,  and  after  supper,  when  she  was  taken  up 
stairs  to  bed,  she  peeped  through  every  open  door  with 
the  expectation  of  seeing  her. 

But  she  was  so  weary  and  sleepy  that  her  curiosity 
and  capacity  for  any  other  emotion  was  blunted.  She 
had  become  simply  a  little,  tired,  sleepy  animal.  She 
let  herself  be  undressed;  she  was  not  even  moved  to 
much  self-pity  when  the  lady  discovered  the  cruel 

25 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

bruise  on  her  delicate  knee,  and  kissed  it,  and  dressed 
it  with  a  healing  salve.  She  was  put  into  a  little 
night-gown  which  she  knew  dreamily  belonged  to  that 
other  child,  and  was  laid  in  a  little  bedstead  which  she 
noted  to  be  made  of  gold,  with  floating  lace  over  the 
head. 

She  sleepily  noted,  too,  that  there  were  flowers  on 
the  walls,  and  more  floating  lace  over  the  bureau.  This 
room  did  not  look  so  strange  to  her  as  the  others;  she 
had  somehow  from  the  treasures  of  her  fancy  provided 
the  family  of  big  bears  and  little  bears  with  a  similar 
one.  Then,  too,  one  of  the  neighbors,  Mrs.  George 
Crocker,  had  read  many  articles  in  women's  papers 
relative  to  the  beautifying  of  homes,  and  had  furnished 
a  wonderful  chamber  with  old  soap-boxes  and  rolls  of 
Japanese  paper  \vhich  was  a  sort  of  a  cousin  many  times 
removed  of  this.  When  she  was  in  bed  the  lady  kissed 
her,  and  called  her  darling,  and  bade  her  sleep  well, 
and  not  be  afraid,  she  was  in  the  next  room,  and  could 
hear  if  she  spoke.  Then  she  stood  looking  at  her,  and 
Ellen  thought  that  she  must  be  younger  than  Minnie 
Swensen,  who  lived  on  her  street,  and  wore  a  yellow 
pigtail,  and  went  to  the  high-school.  Then  she  closed 
her  heavy  eyes,  and  forgot  to  cry  about  her  poor  father 
and  mother ;  still,  there  was,  after  all,  a  hurt  about  them 
down  in  her  childish  heart,  though  a  great  wave  of  new 
circumstances  had  rolled  on  her  shore  and  submerged 
for  the  time  her  memory  and  her  love,  even,  she  was  so 
feeble  and  young. 

She  slept  very  soundly,  and  awoke  only  once,  about 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Then  a  passing  lantern 
flashed  into  the  chamber  into  her  eyes,  and  woke  her 
up,  but  she  only  sighed  and  stretched  drowsily,  then 
turned  her  little  body  over  with  a  luxurious  roll  and 
went  to  sleep  again. 

It  was  poor  Andrew  Brewster's  lantern  which  flashed 

26 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

in  her  eyes,  for  he  was  out  with  a  posse  of  police  and 
sympathizing  neighbors  and  friends  searching  for  his 
lost  little  girl.  He  was  frantic,  and  when  he  came 
under  the  gas-lights  from  time  to  time  the  men  that 
saw  him  shuddered;  they  would  not  have  known  him, 
for  almost  the  farthest  agony  of  which  he  was  capable 
had  changed  his  face. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

usually  a  coarsely  well-kempt  appearance,  her  heavy 
black  hair  being  securely  twisted,  and  her  neck  ribbons 
tied  with  smart  jerks  of  neatness;  but  to-day  her  hair 
was  still  in  the  fringy  braids  of  yesterday,  and  her 
cotton  blouse  humped  untidily  in  the  back.  Pier  face 
was  red  and  her  lips  swollen;  she  looked  like  a  very 
bacchante  of  sorrow,  and  as  if  she  had  been  on  some 
mad  orgy  of  grief. 

Mr.  Walsey,  of  The  Spy,  who  had  formerly  conducted 
a  paper  in  a  college  town  and  was  not  accustomed  to 
the  feminine  possibilities  of  manufacturing  localities, 
felt  almost  afraid  of  her.  He  had  never  seen  a  woman 
of  that  sort,  and  thought  vaguely  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion  and  fish-wives  when  she  gave  vent  to  her  distress 
over  the  loss  of  the  child.  He  fairly  jumped  when  she 
cut  short  a  question  of  his  with  a  volley  of  self-recrimina 
tory  truths,  accompanied  with  fierce  gesturing.  He 
stood  back  involuntarily  out  of  reach  of  those  power 
ful,  waving  arms.  "Do  I  know  of  any  reason  for  the 
child  to  run  away?"  shrieked  Eva,  in  a  voice  shrilly 
hideous  with  emotion,  now  and  then  breaking  into 
hoarseness  with  the  strain  of  tears.  "  I  guess  I  know 
why,  I  guess  I  do,  and  I  wish  I  had  been  six  foot  under 
ground  before  I  did  what  I  did.  It  was  all  my  fault, 
every  bit  of  it.  When  I  got  home,  and  found  that  Fan 
had  been  making  that  precious  young  one  a  dress  out 
of  my  old  blue  one,  I  pitched  into  her  for  it,  and  she 
gave  it  back  to  me,  and  then  we  jawed,  and  kept  it 
up,  till  Andrew,  he  grabbed  the  dress  and  flung  it  into 
the  fire,  and  did  just  right,  too,  and  took  Ellen  and 
run  over  to  old  lady  Brewster's  with  her;  then  Ellen, 
she  see  him  cryin',  and  it  scared  her  'most  to  death, 
poor  little  thing,  and  she  heard  him  say  that  if  it 
wasn't  for  her  he'd  quit,  and  then  she  come  runnin' 
home  to  her  mother  and  me,  and  her  mother  said  the 
same  thing,  and  then  that  poor  young  one,  she 

30 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

thought  she  wa'n't  wanted  nowheres,  and  she  run. 
She  always  was  as  easy  to  hurt  as  a  baby  robin;  it 
didn't  take  nothing  to  set  her  all  of  a  nutter  and  a 
twitter;  and  now  she's  just  flown  out  of  the  nest.  Oh, 
my  God,  I  wish  my  tongue  had  been  torn  out  by  the 
roots  before  I'd  said  a  word  about  her  blessed  little 
dress ;  I  wish  Fan  had  cut  up  every  old  rag  I've  got ; 
I'd  go  dressed  in  fig-leaves  before  I'd  had  it  happen. 
Oh!  oh!  oh!" 

Young  Joe  Bemis,  of  The  Star,  was  the  first  to  leave, 
whirling  madly  and  precariously  down  the  street  on 
his  wheel,  which  was  dizzily  tall  in  those  days.  Mrs. 
Zelotes,  hailing  him  from  her  open  window,  might  as 
well  have  hailed  the  wind.  Her  family  dissensions  were 
well  aired  in  The  Star  next  morning,  and  she  always 
kept  the  cutting  at  the  bottom  of  a  little  rosewood  work- 
box  where  she  stored  away  divers  small  treasures,  and 
never  looked  at  the  box  without  a  swift  dart  of  pain  as 
from  a  hidden  sting  and  the  consciousness  as  of  the 
presence  of  some  noxious  insect  caged  therein. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  was  more  successful  in  arresting  the 
progress  of  the  other  editors,  and  (standing  at  the  win 
dow,  her  Bible  on  the  little  table  at  her  side)  flatly  con 
tradicted  all  that  had  been  told  them  by  her  daughter- 
in-law  and  her  sister.  "The  Louds  always  give  way, 
no  matter  what  comes  up.  You  can  always  tell  what 
kind  of  a  family  anybody  comes  from  by  the  way  they 
take  things  when  anything  comes  across  them.  You 
can't  depend  on  anything  she  says  this  morning.  My 
son  did  not  marry  just  as  I  wished;  everybody  knows 
that ;  the  Louds  weren't  equal  to  our  family,  and  every 
body  knows  it,  and  I  have  never  made  any  secret  as  to 
how  I  felt,  but  we  have  always  got  along  well  enough. 
The  Brewsters  are  not  quarrelsome;  they  never  have 
been.  There  were  no  words  whatever  last  night  to  make 
my  granddaughter  run  away.  Eva  and  Fanny  are  all 

31 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

wrong  about  it.  Ellen  has  been  stolen;  I  know  it  as 
well  as  if  I  had  seen  it.  A  strange-looking  woman 
came  to  the  door  yesterday  afternoon;  she  was  the 
tallest  woman  I  ever  saw,  and  she  took  the  widest  steps  ; 
she  measured  her  dress  skirt  every  step  she  took,  and 
she  spoke  gruff.  1  said  then  I  knew  she  was  a  man 
dressed  up.  Ellen  was  playing  out  in  the  yard,  and 
she  saw  the  child  as  she  went  out,  and  I  see  her  stoop 
and  look  at  her  real  sharp,  and  my  blood  run  kind  of 
cold  then,  and  I  called  Ellen  away  as  quick  as  I  could ; 
and  the  woman,  she  turned  round  and  gave  me  a  look 
that  I  won't  ever  forget  as  long  as  I  live.  My  belief  is 
that  that  woman  was  laying  in  wait  when  Ellen  was  go 
ing  across  the  yard  home  from  here  last  night,  and  she 
has  got  her  safe  somewhere  till  a  reward  is  offered. 
Or  maybe  she  wants  to  keep  her,  Ellen  is  such  a  beau 
tiful  child.  You  needn't  put  in  your  papers  that  my 
grandchild  run  away  because  of  quarrelling  in  our 
family,  because  she  didn't.  Eva  and  Fanny  don't 
know  what  they  are  talking  about,  they  are  so  wrought 
up;  and,  coming  from  the  family  they  do,  they  don't 
know  how  to  control  themselves  and  show  any  sense. 
I  feel  it  as  much  as  they  do,  but  I  have  been  sitting 
here  all  the  morning;  I  know  I  can't  do  anything  to 
help,  and  I  am  working  a  good  deal  harder,  waiting, 
than  they  are,  rushing  from  pillar  to  post  and  taking 
on,  and  I'm  doing  more  good.  I  shall  be  the  only  one 
fit  to  do  anything  when  they  find  the  poor  child.  I've 
got  blankets  warming  by  the  fire,  and  my  tea-kettle 
on,  and  I'm  going  to  be  the  one  to  depend  on  when 
she's  brought  home."  Mrs.  Zelotes  gave  a  glance  of 
defiant  faith  from  the  window  down  the  road  as  she 
spoke.  Then  she  settled  back  in  her  chair  and  re 
sumed  her  Bible,  and  dismissed  the  tall  and  forbidding 
woman  whom  she  had  summoned  to  save  the  honor 
of  her  family  resolutely  from  her  conscience.  The 

32 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

editors  of  The  Spy  and  The  Observer  had  a  row  of 
ingratiating  photographs  of  little  Ellen  from  three  weeks 
to  seven  years  of  age ;  and  their  opinions  as  to  the  cause 
of  her  disappearance,  while  fully  agreeing  in  all  points 
of  sensationalism  with  those  of  young  Bemis,  of  The 
Star,  differed  in  detail. 

Young  Bemis  read  about  the  mysterious  kidnapper, 
and  wondered,  and  the  demand  for  The  Star  was  chiefly 
among  the  immediate  neighbors  of  the  Brewsters.  Both 
The  Observer  and  The  Spy  doubled  their  circulation  in 
one  day,  and  every  face  on  the  night  cars  was  hidden 
behind  poor  little  Ellen's  baby  countenances  and  the 
fairy-story  of  the  witch- woman  who  had  lured  her  away. 
Mothers  kept  their  children  carefully  in -doors  that 
evening,  and  pulled  down  curtains,  fearful  lest  She  look 
in  the  windows  and  be  tempted.  Mrs.  Zelotes  also 
waylaid  both  of  the  Boston  reporters,  but  with  results 
upon  which  she  had  not  counted.  One  presented  her 
story  and  Fanny's  and  Eva's  with  impartial  justice; 
the  other  kept  wholly  to  the  latter  version,  with  the 
addition  of  a  shrewd  theory  of  his  own,  deduced  from 
the  circumstances  which  had  a  parallel  in  actual  history, 
and  boldly  stated  that  the  child  had  probably  committed 
suicide  on  account  of  family  troubles.  Poor  Fanny 
and  Eva  both  saw  that,  when  night  was  falling  and 
Ellen  had  not  been  found.  Eva  rushed  out  and  secured 
the  paper  from  the  newsboy,  and  the  two  sisters  gasped 
over  the  startling  column  together. 

"It's  a  lie!  oh,  Fanny,  it's  a  lie!"  cried  Eva.  "She 
never  would ;  oh,  she  never  would !  That  little  thing, 
just  because  she  heard  you  and  me  scoldin',  and  you 
said  that  to  her,  that  if  it  wasn't  for  her  you'd  go  away. 
She  never  would." 

"Go  away?"  sobbed  Fanny — "go  away?  I  wouldn't 
go  away  from  hell  if  she  was  there.  I  would  burn;  I 
would  hear  the  clankin'  of  chains,  and  groans,  and 

33 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

screeches,  and  devils  whisperin'  in  my  ^ar<;  what  I 
had  done  wrong,  for  all  eternity,  before  ]'=!  go  where 
they  were  playin'  harps  in  heaven,  if  she  as  there. 
I'd  like  it  better,  I  would.  And  I'd  stay  h<-  "  i  had 
twenty  sisters  I  didn't  get  along  with,  anc  ..2  happier 
than  I  would  be  anywhere  else  on  earth,  if  sb~  v  is  here. 
Hut  she  couldn't  have  done  it.  She  didn't  ^w  how. 
It's  awful  to  put  such  things  into  papers." 

Eva  jumped  up  with  a  fierce  gesture,  ran  +  ^he  stove, 
and  crammed  the  paper  in.  "There!"  Sc  ••  "I 

wish  I  could  serve  all  the  papers  in  the  count?- 
way.  I  do,  and  I  'd  like  to  put  all  the  editors 
I'd  like  to  put  'em  in  the  stove  with  their  owi. 
kindlin's."  Suddenly  Eva  turned  with  a 
skirts,  and  was  out  of  the  room  and  pounding 
shaking  the  little  house  with  ever\r  step.  W 
turned  she  bore  over  her  arm  her  best  dress — i,  .„„« 

blue  silk,  ornate  with  ribbons  and  cheap  lace.     

that  pattern?"  she  asked  her  sister. 

"  She  wouldn't  ever  do  such  a  thing,"  moaned  Fanny. 

"Where's  that  pattern?" 

"What  pattern?"  Fanny  said,  faintly. 

"That  little  dress  pattern.  Her  little  dress  pattern, 
the  one  you  cut  over  my  dress  for  her  by." 

"  In    the    bureau    drawer    in    my    room.      Oh,    she 
•  ouldn't." 

Eva  went  into  the  bedroom,  returned  with  the  pattern, 
got  the  scissors  from  Fanny's  work-basket,  and  threw 
her  best  silk  dress  in  a  rustling  heap  upon  the  table. 

Fanny  stopped  moaning  and  looked  at  her  with 
wretched  wonder.  "  \Vhat  be  you  goin'  to  do?" 

"Do?"  cried  Eva,  fiercely— "do?     I'm  goin'   ' 
this  dress  over  for  her." 

"You  ain't." 

"  Yes,  I  be.     If  I  drove  her  away  from  home,  .- 
because  you  cut  over  that  other  old  thing  of  rrr 

34 


TE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her,  Tin'  goin'  to  make  up  for  it  now.  I'm  goin'  to 
i^ive  her  iSy  best  blue  silk,  that  I  paid  a  dollar  and  a 
half  a.ya'iu  for,  and  'ain't  \vorn  three  times.  Yes,  I  be. 
She's  &  , "'to  have  a  dress  cut  out  of  it,  an'  she's  comin' 
back  to  \v"Lif  it,  too.  You'll  see  she  is  comin'  home  to 
wear  i'"7/  '-' 

Eva  £uV  Mildly  into  the  silk  with  mad  slashes  of  her 
gleaming  shears,  while  two  neighboring  \vomen,  who 
had  just1  Vs'tne  into  the  room,  stared  aghast,  and  even 
F;»T  •  ' ' 'partly  diverted  from  her  sorrow. 

'  tazy,"  whispered  one  of  the  women,  backing 
-4ife  spoke. 
IT&,  don't;  don't  do  so,"  pleaded  Fanny,  trem- 

said  Eva,  and  she  cut  recklessly  up  the  front 

.  i  n 

'  itV  i^fn't  cutting  it  right,"  said  the  other  neighbor, 
\\.  .  .skilful  in  such  matters,  and  never  fully  moved 
from  lie.  own  household  grooves  by  any  excitement. 
"  If  you  are  a-goin'  to  cut  it  at  all,  you  had  better  cut 
it  right." 

"I  don't  care  how7  I  cut  it,"  returned  Eva,  thrusting 
the  woman  away.  "Oh,  I  don't  care  how  I  cut  it;  I 
want  to  waste  it.  I  will  waste  it." 

The  other  neighbor  backed  entirely  out  of  the  room 
then  turned  and  fled  across  the  yard,  her  calico  wrapper 
blowing  wildly  and  lashing  about  her  slender  legs, 
to  her  own  house,  the  doors  of  which  she  locked.     Pres 
ently  the  other  woman  followed  her,  stepping  with  the 
ponderous  leisure  which  results  from  vastness  of  body 
philosophy  of  mind.     The  autumn  wind,  swirling 
^iuous  gusts,  had  little  effect  upon  her  broadside 
';  jn  shawl.     She  had  not  come  out  on  that  raw 
with  nothing  upon  her  head.     She  shook  the 
of  her  friend,  and  smiled  with  calm  reas- 
';L-  when  it  was  cautiously  set  ajar  to  disclose 
35 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

a  wide-eyed  and  open-mouthed  face  of  terror.    "Who 
is  it?" 

"It's  me.  What  have  you  got  your  door  locked 
for?" 

"  I  think  that  Eva  Loud  is  raving  crazy.  I'm  afraid 
of  her." 

"  Lord !  you  'ain't  no  reason  to  be  'fraid  of  her.  She 
ain't  crazy.  She's  only  lettin'  the  birds  that  fly  over 
your  an'  my  heads  settle  down  to  roost.  You  and  me, 
both  of  us,  if  we  was  situated  jest  as  she  is,  might 
think  of  doin'  jest  wrhat  she's  a-doin',  but  we  won't 
neither  of  us  do  it.  We'd  let  our  best  dresses  hang  in 
the  closet,  safe  and  sound,  while  we  cut  them  up  in 
our  souls;  but  Eva,  she's  different." 

"Well,  I  don't  care.  I  believe  she's  crazy,  and  I'm 
going  to  keep  my  doors  locked.  How  do  you  know 
she  hasn't  killed  Ellen  and  put  her  in  the  well?" 

"Stuff!  Now  you're  lettin'  your  birds  roost,  Hattie 
Monroe." 

"  I  read  something  that  wasn't  any  worse  than  that 
in  the  paper  the  other  day.  I  should  think  they  \vould 
look  in  the  wrell.  Have  Mrs.  Jones  and  Miss  Cross 
gone  home?" 

"No;  they  are  over  there.  There's  poor  Andrew 
coming  now;  I  \vonder  if  he  has  heard  anything?" 

Both  women  eyed  hesitatingly  poor  Andrew  Brew- 
ster's  dejected  figure  creeping  up  the  road  in  the  dark. 

"You  holler  and  ask  him,"  said  the  woman  in  the 
door. 

"I  hate  to,  for  I  knowT  by  his  looks  he  'ain't  heard 
anything  of  her.  I  know  he's  jest  comin'  home  to 
rest  a  minute,  so  he  can  start  again.  I  know  he  'ain't 
eat  a  thing  since  last  night.  Well,  Maria  has  got  some 
coffee  all  made,  and  a  nice  little  piece  of  steak  ready  to 
cook." 

"You  holler  and  ask  him." 

36 


"EVA  SPRANG  FORWARD  AND  CLUTCHED  HIM  BY  THE  ARM" 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What  is  the  use?  Just  see  the  way  he  walks;  I 
know  without  askin'." 

However,  as  Andrew  neared  his  house  he  involun 
tarily  quickened  his  pace,  and  his  head  and  shoulders 
became  suddenly  alert.  It  had  occurred  to  him  that 
possibly  Fanny  and  Eva  might  have  had  some  news 
of  Ellen  during  his  absence.  Possibly  she  might  have 
come  home  even. 

Then  he  was  hailed  by  the  stout  woman  standing 
at  the  door  of  the  next  house.  "  Heard  anything  yet, 
Andrew?" 

Andrew  shook  his  head,  and  looked  with  despairing 
eyes  at  the  windows  where  he  used  to  see  Ellen's  little 
face.  She  had  not  come,  then,  for  these  women  would 
have  known  it.  He  entered  the  house,  and  Fanny 
greeted  him  with  a  tremulous  cry.  "  Have  you  heard 
anything;  oh,  have  you  heard  anything,  Andrew?" 

Eva  sprang  forward  and  clutched  him  by  the  arm. 

"Have  you?" 

Andrew  shook  his  head,  and  moved  her  hand  from 
his  arm,  and  pushed  past  her  roughly. 

Fanny  stood  in  his  way,  and  threw  her  arms  around 
him  with  a  wild,  sobbing  cry,  but  he  pushed  her  away 
also  with  sternness,  and  went  to  the  kitchen  sink  to 
wash  his  hands.  The  four  women —  his  \vife,  her  sister, 
and  the  two  neighbors — stood  staring  at  him;  his  face 
was  terrible  as  he  dipped  the  water  from  the  pail  on  the 
sink  corner,  and  the  terribleness  of  it  was  accentuated 
by  the  homely  and  every-day  nature  of  his  action. 

They  all  stared,  then  Fanny  burst  out  with  a  loud 
and  desperate  wail.  "  He  won't  speak  to  me,  he  pushes 
me  away,  when  it  is  our  child  that's  lost  —  his  as  well 
as  mine.  He  hasn't  any  feelings  for  me  that  bore  her. 
He  only  thinks  of  himself.  Oh,  oh,  my  own  husband 
pushes  me  away." 

Andrew  went  on  washing  his  hands  and  his  ghastly 

37 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

face,  and  made  no  reply.  He  had  actually  at  that 
moment  not  the  slightest  sympathy  with  his  wife.  All 
his  other  outlets  of  affection  were  choked  by  his  con 
cern  for  his  lost  child ;  and  as  for  pity,  he  kept  reflect 
ing,  with  a  cold  cruelty,  that  it  served  her  right — 
it  served  both  her  and  her  sister  right.  I  Lid  not  they 
driven  the  child  awaj^  between  them? 

He  would  not  eat  the  supper  which  the  neighbors  had 
prepared  for  him ;  finally  he  went  across  the  yard  to  his 
mother's.  It  seemed  to  him  at  that  time  that  his  mother 
could  enter  into  his  state  of  mind  better  than  any  one 
else. 

When  he  went  out,  Fanny  called  after  him,  fran 
tically,  "Oh,  Andrew,  you  ain't  going  to  leave  me?" 

When  he  made  no  response,  she  gazed  for  a  second 
at  his  retreating  back,  then  her  temper  came  to  her 
aid.  She  caught  her  sister's  arm,  and  pulled  her  away 
out  of  the  kitchen.  "  Come  with  me,"  she  said,  hoarse 
ly.  "I've  got  nobody  but  you.  My  own  husband 
leaves  me  when  he  is  in  such  awful  trouble,  and  goes 
to  that  old  woman,  that  has  always  hated  me,  for  com 
fort," 

The  sisters  went  into  Fanny's  bedroom,  and  sat  down 
on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  with  their  arms  round  each  other. 
"Oh,  Fanny!"  sobbed  Eva;  "poor,  poor  Fanny!  if 
Andrew  turns  against  you,  I  will  stand  by  you  as  long 
as  I  live.  I  will  work  my  fingers  to  the  bone  to  support 
you  and  Ellen.  I  will  never  get  married.  I  will  sta\r 
and  work  for  you  and  her.  And  I  will  never  get  mad 
with  you  again  as  long  as  I  live,  Fanny.  Oh,  it  was  all 
my  fault,  every  bit  my  fault,  but,  but — "  Eva's  voice 
broke ;  suddenly  .she  clasped  her  sister  tighter,  and  then 
she  went  down  on  her  knees  beside  the  bed,  and  hid 
her  tangled  head  in  her  lap.  "  Oh,  Fanny,"  she  sobbed 
out  miserably,  "there  ain't  much  excuse  for  me,  but 
there's  a  little.  When  Jim  Tenny  stopped  goin'  with 

38 


T  H  E     P  O  R  T  I  O  N     O  F     L  A  B  O  R 

me  last  summer,  my  heart  'most  broke.  I  don't  care 
if  you  do  know  it.  That's  what  made  me  so  much 
worse  than  I  used  to  be.  Oh,  my  heart  'most  broke, 
Fanny!  He's  treated  me  awful,  but  I  can't  get  over  it; 
and  now  little  Ellen's  gone,  and  I  drove  her  away!" 

Fanny  bent  over  her  sister,  and  pressed  her  head 
close  to  her  bosom.  "Don't  you  feel  so  bad,  Eva," 
said  she.  "  You  wasn't  any  more  to  blame  than  I  was, 
and  we'll  stand  by  each  other  as  long  as  we  live." 

"I'll  work  my  fingers  to  the  bone  for  you  and  Ellen, 
and  I'll  never  get  married,"  said  Eva  again. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ELLEN  BREWSTER  was  two  nights  and  a  day  at 
Cynthia  Lennox's,  and  no  one  discovered  it.  All  day 
the  searching  -  parties  passed  the  house.  Once  Ellen 
was  at  the  window,  and  one  of  the  men  looked  up  and 
saw  her,  and  since  his  solicitude  for  the  lost  child  filled 
his  heart  with  responsiveness  towards  all  childhood, 
he  waved  his  hand  and  nodded,  and  bade  another  man 
look  at  that  handsome  little  kid  in  the  window. 

"Guess  she's  about  Ellen's  size/'  said  the  other. 

"Shouldn't  wonder  if  she  looked  something  like 
her,"  said  the  first. 

"Answers  the  description  well  enough/'  said  the 
other,  "same  light  hair." 

Both  of  the  men  waved  their  hands  to  Ellen  as  they 
passed  on,  but  she  shrank  back  afraid.  That  was 
about  ten  o'clock  of  the  morning  of  the  day  after  Miss 
Lennox  had  taken  her  into  her  house.  She  had  waked 
at  dawn  with  a  full  realization  of  the  situation.  She 
remembered  perfectly  all  that  had  happened.  She 
was  a  child  for  whom  there  were  very  few  half-lights  of 
life,  and  no  spiritual  twilights  connected  her  sleeping 
and  waking  hours.  She  opened  her  eyes  and  looked 
around  the  room,  and  remembered  how  she  had  run 
away  and  how  her  mother  was  not  there,  and  she 
remembered  the  strange  lady  with  that  same  odd 
combination  of  terror  and  attraction  and  docility  with 
which  she  had  regarded  her  the  night  before.  It  was 
a  very  cold  morning,  and  there  was  a  delicate  film  of 
frost  on  the  windows  between  the  sweeps  of  the  muslin 

40 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

curtains,  and  the  morning  sun  gave  it  a  rosy  glow  and 
a  crusting  sparkle  as  of  diamonds.  The  sight  of  the  frost 
had  broken  poor  Andrew  Brewster's  heart  when  he  saw 
it,  and  reflected  how  it  might  have  meant  death  to  his 
little  tender  child  out  under  the  blighting  fall  of  it,  like 
a  little  house-flower. 

Ellen  lay  winking  at  it  when  Cynthia  Lennox  came 
into  the  room  and  leaned  over  her.  The  child  cast 
a  timid  glance  up  at  the  tall,  slender  figure  clad  in  a 
dressing-gown  of  quilted  crimson  silk  which  dazzled 
her  eyes,  accustomed  as  she  was  to  morning  wrappers 
of  dark-blue  cotton  at  ninety-eight  cents  apiece;  and 
she  was  filled  with  undefined  apprehensions  of  splen 
dor  and  opulence  which  might  overwhelm  her  simple 
grasp  of  life  and  cause  her  to  lose  all  her  old  standards 
of  value. 

She  had  always  thought  her  mother's  wrappers  very 
beautiful,  but  now  look  at  this!  Cynthia's  face,  too, 
in  the  dim,  rosy  light,  looked  very  fair  to  the  child,  who 
had  no  discernment  for  those  ravages  of  time  of  which 
adults  either  acquit  themselves  or  by  which  they  meas 
ure  their  own.  She  did  not  see  the  faded  color  of  the 
woman's  face  at  all;  she  did  not  see  the  spread 
ing  marks  around  mouth  and  eyes,  or  the  faint 
parallels  of  care  on  the  temples;  she  saw  only  that 
which  her  unbiased  childish  vision  had  ever  sought 
in  a  human  face,  love  and  kindness,  and  tender 
admiration  of  herself;  and  her  convic^on  of  its 
beauty  was  complete.  But  at  the  same  time  a 
bitter  and  piteous  jealousy  for  her  mother  and 
home,  and  all  that  .she  had  ever  loved  and  believed  in, 
came  over  her.  What  right  had  this  strange  woman, 
dressed  in  a  silk  dress  like  that,  to  be  leaning  over  her 
in  the  morning,  and  looking  at  her  like  that  —  to  be 
leaning  over  her  in  the  morning  instead  of  her  own 
mother,  and  looking  at  her  in  that  way,  when  she  was 

41 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

not  her  mother?  She  shrank  away  towards  the 
other  side  of  the  bed  with  that  nestling  motion  which 
is  the  natural  one  of  all  young  and  gentle  children 
even  towards  vacancy,  but  suddenly  Cynthia  was  lean 
ing  close  over  her,  and  she  was  conscious  again  of  that 
soft  smother  of  violets,  and  Cynthia's  arms  were  em 
bracing  all  her  delicate  little  body  with  tenderest  violence, 
folding  her  against  the  soft  red  silk  over  her  bosom, 
and  kissing  her  little,  blushing  cheeks  with  the  lightest 
and  carefulest  kisses,  as  though  she  were  a  butterfly 
which  she  feared  to  harm  with  her  adoring  touch. 

"Oh,  you  darling,  you  precious  darling!"  whispered 
Cynthia.  "Don't  be  afraid,  darling;  don't  be  afraid, 
precious;  you  are  very  safe;  don't  be  afraid.  You 
shall  have  such  a  little,  white,  new-laid  egg  for  your 
breakfast,  and  some  slices  of  toast,  such  a  beautiful 
brown,  and  some  hone3T.  Do  you  love  hone3T,  sweet? 
And  some  chocolate,  all  in  a  little  pink-and-gold  cup 
which  you  shall  have  for  your  very  own." 

"I  want  my  mother!"  Ellen  cried  out  suddenly,  with 
an  exceedingly  bitter  and  terrified  and  indignant  cry. 

"There,  there,  darling!"  Cynthia  whispered;  "there 
is  a  beautiful  red-and-green  parrot  down-stairs  in  a 
great  cage  that  shines  like  gold,  and  you  shall  have 
him  for  your  own,  and  he  can  talk.  You  shall  have 
him  for  your  very  own,  sweetheart.  Oh,  you  darling! 
you  darling!" 

Ellen  felt  herself  overborne  and  conquered  by  this 
tide  of  love,  which  compelled  like  her  mother's,  though 
this  woman  was  not  her  mother,  and  her  revolt  of  loj^alty 
was  subdued  for  the  time.  After  all,  whether  we  like 
it  or  not,  love  is  somewhat  of  an  impersonal  quality  to 
all  children,  and  perhaps  to  their  elders,  and  it  may 
be  in  such  wise  that  the  goddess  is  evident. 

She  did  not  shrink  from  Cynthia  any  more  then,  but 
suffered  her  to  lift  her  out  of  bed  as  if  she  were  a 

42 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  set  her  on  a  white  fur  rug,  into  which  her  feet  sank, 
to  her  astonishment.  Her  mother  had  only  drawn-in 
rugs,  which  Ellen  had  watched  her  make.  She  was  a 
little  afraid  of  the  fur  rug. 

Ellen  was  very  small,  and  seemed  much  younger 
than  she  was  by  reason  of  her  baby  silence  and  her 
little  clinging  ways.  Then,  too,  she  had  always  been 
so  petted  at  home,  and  through  never  going  to  school 
had  not  been  in  contact  with  other  children.  Often 
the  bloom  of  childhood  is  soonest  rubbed  off  by  friction 
with  its  own  kind.  Diamond  cut  diamond  holds  good 
in  many  cases. 

Cynthia  did  not  think  she  was  more  than  six  years 
old,  and  never  dreamed  of  allowing  her  to  dress  herself, 
and  indeed  the  child  had  always  been  largely  assisted 
in  so  doing.  Cynthia  washed  her  and  dressed  her, 
and  curled  her  hair,  and  led  her  down-stairs  into  the 
dining-room  of  the  night  before,  which  Ellen  still  re 
garded  with  wise  eyes  as  the  store.  Then  she  sat  in 
the  tall  chair  which  must  have  been  vacated  by  that 
mysterious  other  child,  and  had  her  breakfast,  eating 
her  new  -  laid  egg,  which  the  black  woman  broke  for 
her,  while  she  leaned  delicately  away  as  far  as  she  could 
with  a  timid  shrug  of  her  little  shoulder,  and  sipping 
her  chocolate  out  of  the  beautiful  pink-and-gold  cup. 
That,  however,  Ellen  decided  within  herself  was  not 
nearly  as  pretty  as  one  with  "A  Gift  of  Friendship" 
on  it  in  gilt  letters  which  her  grandmother  kept  on  the 
whatnot  in  her  best  parlor.  This  had  been  given  to  her 
aunt  Ellen,  who  died  when  she  was  a  young  girl,  and 
was  to  be  hers  when  she  grew  up.  She  did  not  care  as 
much  for  the  egg  and  toast  either  as  for  the  griddle- 
cakes  and  maple  syrup  at  home.  All  through  break 
fast  Cynthia  talked  to  her,  and  in  such  manner  as  the 
child  had  never  heard.  That  fine  voice,  full  of  sweetest 
modulations  and  cadences,  which  used  the  language 

43 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

with  the  precision  of  a  musician,  was  as  different  from 
the  voices  at  home  with  their  guttural  slurs  and  maimed 
terminals  as  the  song  of  a  spring  robin  from  the  scream 
of  the  parrot  which  Ellen  could  hear  in  some  distant 
room.  And  what  Cynthia  said  was  as  different  from 
ordinary  conversation  to  the  child  as  a  fairy  tale,  being 
interspersed  with  terms  of  endearment  which  her  mother 
arid  grandmother  would  have  considered  high-flown, 
and  have  been  shamefaced  in  employing,  and  full  of  a 
whimsical  playfulness  which  had  an  undertone  of 
pathos  in  it.  Cynthia  was  not  still  for  a  minute,  and 
seemed  to  feel  that  much  of  her  power  lay  in  her  speech 
and  voice,  like  some  enchantress  who  cast  her  spell 
by  means  of  her  silver  tongue.  Nobody  knew  how  she 
dreaded  that  outcry  of  Ellen's,  "I  want  my  mother!" 
It  gave  her  the  sensations  of  a  murderess,  even  while 
she  persisted  in  her  crime.  vSo  she  talked,  diverting 
the  child's  mind  from  its  natural  channel  by  sheer 
force  of  eloquence.  She  told  a  story  about  the  parrot, 
which  caused  Ellen's  eyes  to  widen  with  thoughtfid 
wonder;  she  promised  her  treasures  and  pleasures 
which  made  her  mouth  twitch  into  smiles  in  spite  of 
herself;  but  with  all  her  efforts,  when  after  breakfast 
they  went  into  another  room,  Ellen  broke  out  again, 
"  I  want  my  mother!" 

Cynthia  turned  white  and  struggled  with  herself 
for  a  moment,  then  she  spoke.  That  which  she  was 
doing  of  the  nature  of  a  crime  was  in  reality  more  foreign 
to  her  nature  than  virtue,  and  her  instinct  was  to  re 
turn  to  her  narrow  and  straight  way  in  spite  of  its 
cramping  of  love  and  natural  longings.  "Who  is 
y our  mother,  darling?"  she  asked.  "  And  what  is  your 
name?" 

But  Ellen  was  silent,  except  for  that  one  cry,  "I 
want  my  mother!"  The  persistency  of  the  child,  in 
spite  of  her  youth  and  her  distress,  was  almost  invulner- 

44 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

able.  She  came  of  a  stiff-necked  family  on  one  side  at 
least,  and  sometimes  stiff-neckedness  is  more  pro 
nounced  in  a  child  than  in  an  adult,  in  whom  it  may 
be  tempered  by  experience  and  policy.  "  I  want  my 
mother!  I  want  my  mother!"  Ellen  repeated  in  her 
gentle  wail  as  plaintively  inconsequent  as  the  note  of  a 
bird,  and  would  say  no  more. 

Then  Cynthia  displayed  the  parrot,  but  a  parrot  was 
too  fine  and  fierce  a  bird  for  Ellen.  She  would  have 
preferred  him  as  a  subject  for  her  imagination,  which 
could  not  be  harmed  by  his  beak  and  claws,  and  she 
liked  Cynthia's  story  about  him  better  than  the  gor 
geous  actuality  of  the  bird  himself.  She  shrank  back 
from  that  shrieking  splendor,  clinging  with  strong 
talons  to  his  cage  wires,  against  which  he  pressed 
cruelly  his  red  breast  and  beat  his  gold-green  wings, 
and  through  which  he  thrust  his  hooked  beak,  and 
glared  with  his  yellow  eyes. 

Ellen  fairly  sobbed  at  last  when  the  parrot  thrust 
out  a  wicked  and  deceiving  claw  towards  her,  and  said 
something  in  his  unearthly  shriek  which  seemed  to 
have  a  distinct  reference  to  her,  and  fired  at  her  a  volley 
of  harsh  "How  do's"  and  "Good-mornings,"  and 
"Good-nights,"  and  "Polly  want  a  cracker's,"  then 
finished  with  a  wild  shriek  of  laughter,  her  note  of 
human  grief  making  a  curious  chord  with  the  bird's 
of  inhuman  mirth.  "I  want  my  mother!"  she  panted 
out,  and  wept,  and  would  not  be  comforted.  Then 
Cynthia  took  her  away  from  the  parrot  and  produced 
the  doll.  Then  truly  did  the  sentiment  of  emulative 
motherhood  in  her  childish  breast  console  her  for  the 
time  for  her  need  of  her  own  mother.  Such  a  doll  as 
that  she  had  never  seen,  not  even  in  the  store-windows 
at  Christmas-time.  Still,  she  had  very  fine  dolls  for 
a  little  girl  whose  relatives  were  not  wealthy,  but  this 
doll  was  like  a  princess,  and  nearly  as  large  as  Ellen. 

45 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  held  out  her  arms  tor  this  ravishing  creature 
in  a  French  gown,  looked  into  its  countenance  of 
unflinching  infantile  grace  and  amiability  and  inno 
cence,  and  her  fickle  heart  betrayed  her,  and  she 
laughed  with  delight,  and  the  tension  of  anxiety  re 
laxed  in  her  face. 

"  Where  is  her  mother?"  she  asked  of  Cynthia,  having 
a  very  firm  belief  in  the  little  girl-motherhood  of  dolls. 
She  could  not  imagine  a  doll  without  her  little  mother, 
and  even  in  the  cases  of  the  store-dolls,  she  wondered 
how  their  mothers  could  let  them  be  sold,  and  mothered 
by  other  little  girls,  however  poor  they  might  be.  But 
she  never  doubted  that  her  own  dolls  were  her  very  own 
children  even  if  they  had  been  bought  in  a  store.  So 
now  she  asked  C}rnthia  with  an  indescribably  pitying 
innocence,  "  Where  is  her  mother?" 

Cynthia  laughed  and  looked  adoringly  at  the  child 
with  the  doll  in  her  arms.  "  She  has  no  mother  but 
you,"  said  she.  "She  is  yours,  but  once  she  belonged 
to  a  dear  little  boy,  who  used  to  live  with  me." 

Ellen  stared  thoughtfully :  she  had  never  seen  a  little 
boy  with  a  doll.  The  lady  seemed  to  read  her  thought, 
for  she  laughed  again. 

"  This  little  boy  had  curls,  and  he  wore  dresses  like 
a  little  girl,  and  he  was  just  as  pretty  as  a  little  girl, 
and  he  loved  to  play  with  dolls  like  a  little  girl,"  said  she. 

"  Where  is  he?"  asked  Ellen,  in  a  small,  gentle  voice. 
"  Don't  he  want  her  now?" 

"No,  darling,"  said  Cynthia;  "  he  is  not  here;  he  has 
been  gone  away  two  years,  and  he  had  left  off  his  baby 
curls  and  his  dresses,  and  stopped  playing  with  her  for 
a  year  before  that."  Cynthia  sighed  and  drew  down 
her  mouth,  and  Ellen  looked  at  her  lovingly  and  won- 
deringly. 

"Be  you  his  mother?"  she  asked,  piteously;  then, 
before  Cynthia  could  answer,  her  own  lip  quivered  and 

46 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

she  sobbed  out  again,  even  while  she  hugged  her  doll- 
child  to  her  bosom,  "  I  want  my  mother!  I  want  my 
mother!" 

All  that  day  the  struggle  went  on.  Cynthia  Lennox, 
leading  her  little  guest,  who  always  bore  the  doll,  trav 
ersed  the  fine  old  house  in  search  of  distraction,  for 
the  heart  of  the  child  was  sore  for  its  mother,  and  suc 
cess  was  always  intermittent.  The  music-box  played, 
the  pictures  were  explained,  and  even  old  trunks  of  laid- 
a\\ay  treasures  ransacked.  Cynthia  took  her  through 
the  hot-houses  and  gave  her  all  the  flowers  she  liked  to 
pick,  to  still  that  longing  cry  of  hers.  Cynthia  Lennox 
had  fine  hot-houses  kept  by  an  old  colored  man,  the 
husband  of  her  black  cook.  Her  establishment  was 
very  small;  her  one  other  maid  she  had  sent  away 
early  that  morning  to  make  a  visit  with  a  sick  sister  in 
another  town.  The  old  colored  couple  had  lived  in  her 
family  since  she  was  born,  and  would  have  been  silent 
had  she  stolen  a  whole  family  of  children.  Ellen  caught 
a  glimpse  of  a  bent,  dark  figure  at  one  end  of  the  pink- 
house  as  they  entered;  he  glanced  up  at  her  with  no 
appearance  of  surprise,  only  a  broad,  welcoming  ex 
pansion  of  his  whole  face,  which  caused  her  to  shrink; 
then  he  shuffled  out  in  response  to  an  order  of  his  mis 
tress. 

Ellen  stared  at  the  pinks,  swarming  as  airily  as  butter 
flies  in  motley  tints  of  palest  rose  to  deepest  carmine 
over  the  blue-green  jungle  of  their  stems;  she  sniffed 
the  warm,  moist,  perfumed  atmosphere;  she  followed 
Cynthia  down  the  long  perspective  of  bloom,  then  she 
said  again  that  she  wanted  her  mother;  and  Cynthia 
led  her  into  the  rose-house,  then  into  one  where  the 
grapes  hung  low  overhead  and  the  air  was  as  s\veet 
and  strong  as  wrine,  but  even  there  Ellen  wanted  her 
mother. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  next  morning  when  she  was 

47 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

eating  her  breakfast  that  the  climax  came.  Then  the 
door-bell  rang,  and  presently  Cynthia  was  summoned 
into  another  room.  She  kissed  Ellen,  and  bade  her  go 
on  with  her  breakfast  and  she  would  return  shortly; 
but  before  she  had  quite  left  the  room  a  man  stood  un 
expectedly  in  the  door- way,  a  man  who  looked  younger 
than  Cynthia,  lie  had  a  fair  mustache,  a  high  forehead 
scowling  over  near-sighted  blue  eyes,  and  stood  with  a 
careless  slouch  of  shoulders  in  a  gray  coat. 

"Good-morning,"  he  began.  Then  he  stopped  short 
when  he  saw  Ellen  in  her  tall  chair  staring  shyly  around 
at  him  through  her  soft  golden  mist  of  hair.  "  What 
child  is  that?"  he  demanded;  but  Cynthia  with  a  sharp 
cry  sprang  to  him,  and  fairly  pulled  him  out  of  the 
room,  and  closed  the  door. 

Then  Ellen  heard  voices  rising  higher  and  higher, 
and  Cynthia  say,  in  a  voice  of  shrill  passion  :  "  1  cannot, 
Lyman.  I  cannot  give  her  up.  You  don't  know  what 
I  have  suffered  since  George  married  and  took  little 
Robert  away.  I  can't  let  this  child  go." 

Then  came  the  man's  voice,  hoarse  with  excitement: 
"But,  Cynthia,  you  must;  you  are  mad.  Think 
what  this  means.  Why,  if  people  know  what  you  have 
done,  kept  this  child,  while  all  this  search  has  been 
going  on,  and  made  no  effort  to  find  out  who  she  was — " 

"I  did  ask  her,  and  she  would  not  tell  me,"  Cynthia 
said,  miserably. 

"Good  Lord!  what  of  that?  That  is  nothing  but  a 
subterfuge.  You  must  have  seen  in  the  papers — 

"  I  have  not  looked  at  a  paper  since  she  came." 

"  Of  course  you  have  not.  You  were  afraid  to.  Why, 
good  God!  Cynthia  Lennox,  I  don't  know  but  you  will 
stand  in  danger  of  lynching  if  people  ever  find  this 
out,  that  you  have  taken  in  this  child  and  kept  her  in 
this  way- — I  don't  know  what  people  will  do." 

Ellen,  waited  for  no  more;  she  rose  softly,  she  gathered 

48 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

up  her  great  doll  which  sat  in  a  little  chair  near  by, 
she  gathered  up  her  pink-and-gold  cup  which  had  been 
given  her,  and  the  pinks  which  had  been  brought  from 
the  hot-house  the  day  before,  which  Cynthia  had  ar 
ranged  in  a  vase  beside  her  plate,  then  she  stole  very 
softly  out  of  the  side  door,  and  out  of  the  house,  and 
ran  down  the  street  as  fast  as  her  little  feet  could  carry 
her. 


CHAPTER  V 

THAT  morning,  after  the  street  in  front  of  Lloyd's 
factory  had  been  cleared  of  the  flocking  employe's  with 
their  little  dinner-boxes,  and  the  great  broadside  of  the 
front  windows  had  been  set  with  faces  of  the  workers, 
a  distracted  figure  came  past.  A  young  fellow  at  a 
window  of  the  cutting-room  noticed  her  first.  "  Look 
at  that,  Jim  Tenny,"  said  he,  with  a  shove  of  an  elbow 
towards  his  next  neighbor. 

"  Get  out,  will  ye?"  growled  Jim  Tenny,  but  he  looked. 

Then  three  girls  from  the  stitching-room  came  crowd 
ing  up  behind  with  furtively  tender  pressings  of  round 
arms  against  the  shoulders  of  the  3roung  men.  "We 
come  in  here  to  see  if  that  was  Eva  Loud,"  said  one,  a 
sharp-faced,  alert  girl,  not  pretty,  but  a  favorite  among 
the  male  employes,  to  the  constant  wonder  of  the  other 
girls. 

"  Yes,  it's  her  fast  enough,"  rejoined  another,  a  sweet- 
faced  blonde  with  an  exaggeratedly  fashionable  coiffure 
and  a  noticeable  smartness  in  the  tie  of  her  neck-ribbon 
and  the  set  of  her  cotton  waist.  "  Just  look  at  the  poor 
thing's  hair.  Only  see  how  frowsly  it  is,  and  she  has 
come  out  without  her  hat." 

"Well,  I  don't  wonder,"  said  the  third  girl,  who  was 
elderly  and  whose  complexion  was  tanned  and  weather- 
beaten  almost  to  the  color  of  the  leather  upon  which 
she  worked.  Yet  through  this  seamed  and  discolored 
face,  with  thin  grayish  hair  drawn  back  tightly  from  the 
temples,  one  could  discern,  as  through  a  transparent 
mask,  a  past  prettiness  and  an  exceeding  gentleness 

50 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  faithfulness.  "  If  my  sister's  little  Helen  was  to  be 
lost  I  shouldn't  know  whether  my  hat  was  on  or  not," 
said  she.  "I  believe  I  should  go  raving  mad." 

"  You  wouldn't  have  to  slave  as  you  have  done  sup- 
portin'  it  ever  since  your  sister's  husband  died,"  said 
the  pretty  girl.  "Only  look  how  Eva's  waist  bags  in 
the  back  and  she  'ain't  got  any  belt  on.  I  wouldn't 
come  out  lookin'  so." 

"  I  should  die  if  I  didn't  have  something  to  work  for. 
That's  the  difference  between  being  a  worker  and  a 
slave/'  said  the  other  girl,  simply.  "  Poor  Eva!" 

"  Well,  it  was  a  pretty  young  one,"  said  the  first  girl. 

"Looks  to  me  as  if  Eva  Loud's  skirt  was  comin' 
off,"  said  the  pretty  girl.  She  pressed  close  to  Jim 
Tenny  with  a  familiar  air  of  proprietorship  as  she  spoke, 
but  the  young  man  did  not  seem  to  heed  her.  He  was 
looking  over  his  bench  at  the  figure  on  the  street  below, 
and  his  heavy  black  eyebrows  were  scowling,  and  his 
mouth  set. 

Jim  Tenny  was  handsome  after  a  swarthy  and  grimy 
fashion,  for  the  tint  of  the  leather  seemed  to  have  be 
come  absorbed  into  his  skin.  His  black  mustache 
bristled  roughly,  but  his  face  was  freer  than  usual  from 
his  black  beard-stubble,  because  the  day  before  had 
been  Sunday  and  he  had  shaved.  His  black  right  hand 
with  its  squat  discolored  nails  grasped  his  cutting-knife 
with  a  hard  clutch,  his  left  held  the  piece  of  leather 
firmly  in  place,  while  he  stared  out  with  that  angry  and 
anxious  scowl  at  Eva,  who  had  paused  on  the  street  be 
low,  and  was  staring  up  at  the  windows,  as  if  she  meditat 
ed  a  wild  search  in  the  factory  for  the  lost  child.  There 
was  a  curious  likeness  between  the  two  faces;  people 
had  been  accustomed  to  say  that  Eva  Loud  and  her 
gentleman  looked  more  like  brother  and  sister  than  a 
courting  couple,  and  there  was,  moreover,  a  curious 
spirit  of  comradeship  between  the  two.  It  asserted  it- 
si 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

self  now  with  the  young  man,  in  opposition  to  the  more 
purely  sexual  attraction  of  the  pretty  girl  who  was  lean 
ing  against  him,  and  for  whom  he  had  deserted  Eva. 

After  all,  friendship  and  good  comradeship  are  a 
steadier  force  than  love,  if  not  as  overwhelming,  and  it 
may  be  that  tortoise  of  the  emotions  which  outruns  the 
hare. 

"  Well,  for  my  part,  I  think  a  good  deal  more  of  Eva 
Loud  than  if  she  had  come  out  all  frizzed  and  ruffled — 
shows  her  heart  is  in  the  right  place/'  said  the  man 
who  had  spoken  first.  He  spoke  with  a  guttural  drawl, 
and  kept  on  with  his  work,  but  there  was  a  meaning  in 
his  words  for  the  pretty  girl,  who  had  coquetted  with 
him  before  taking  up  with  Jim  Tenny. 

"That  is  so,"  said  another  man  at  Jim  Tenny 's 
right.  "  She  is  right  to  come  out  as  she'  has  done 
when  she  is  so  anxious  for  the  child. "  This  man  was  a 
fair-haired  Swede,  and  he  spoke  English  with  a  curious 
and  careful  precision,  very  different  from  the  hurried, 
.slurring  intonations  of  the  other  men.  He  had  been 
taught  the  language  by  a  philanthropic  young  lady,  a 
college  graduate,  in  whose  father's  family  he  had  lived 
when  he  first  came  to  America,  and  in  consequence  he 
spoke  like  a  gentleman  and  had  some  considerable 
difficulty  in  understanding  his  companions. 

"Eva  Loud  has  had  a  damned  hard  time,  take  it  all 
together,"  spoke  out  another  man,  looking  over  his 
bench  at  the  girl  on  the  street.  He  was  small  and  thin 
and  wiry,  a  mass  of  brown-coated  muscles  under  his 
loose-hanging  gingham  shirt.  He  plied  feverishly  his 
cutting-knife  with  his  lean,  hairy  hands  as  he  spoke. 
He  was  accounted  one  of  the  best  and  swiftest  cutters 
in  Lloyd's,  and  he  worked  unceasingly,  for  he  had  an 
invalid  wife  and  four  children  to  support.  Now  and 
then  he  had  to  stop  to  cough,  then  he  worked  faster. 

"  That's  so,"  said  the  first  man. 

52 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Yes,  that  is  so/'  said  the  Swede,  with  a  nod  of  his 
fair  head. 

"And  now  to  lose  this  young  one  that  she  set  her 
life  by,"  said  the  first  girl,  with  an  evident  point  of 
malice  in  her  tone,  and  a  covert  look  at  the  pretty  girl 
at  Jim  Tenny's  side.  Jim  Tenny  paled  under  his 
grime;  the  hand  which  held  the  knife  clinched. 

"  What  do  you  s'pose  has  become  of  the  young  one?" 
said  the  first  girl.  "There's  a  good  many  out  from 
the  shop  huntin'  this  mornin',  ain't  there?" 

"Fifty,"  said  the  first  man,  laconically. 

"  You  three  were  out  all  day  yesterday,  wa'n't  you?" 

"Yes,  Jim  and  Carl  and  me  were  out  till  after  mid 
night." 

"  Well,  I  wonder  whether  the  poor  little  young  one  is 
alive?  Don't  seem  as  if  she  could  be — but — 

"Look  there!  look  there!"  screamed  the  elderly  girl 
suddenly.  "Look  at  there!"  She  began  to  dance, 
she  laughed,  she  sobbed,  she  waved  her  lean  hands 
frantically  out  of  the  window,  leaning  far  over  the 
bench.  "Look  at  there!"  she  kept  crying.  Then  she 
turned  and  ran  out  of  the  room,  with  the  other  girls 
and  half  the  cutting-room  after  her. 

"Damn  it,  she's  got  the  child!"  said  the  thin  man. 
He  kept  on  working,  his  dark,  sinewy  hands  flying 
over  the  sheets  of  leather,  but  the  tears  ran  down  his 
cheeks.  Lloyd's  emptied  itself  into  the  street,  and  sur 
rounded  Eva  Loud  and  Ellen,  who,  running  aimless 
ly,  had  come  straight  to  her  aunt.  Jim  Tenny  was  first. 

Eva  stood  clasping  the  child,  who  was  too  frightened 
to  cry,  and  was  breathing  in  hushed  gasps,  her  face 
hidden  on  her  aunt's  broad  bosom.  Eva  had  caught 
her  up  at  the  first  sight  of  her,  and  now  she  stood  clasp 
ing  her  fiercely,  and  looking  at  them  all  as  if  she  thought 
they  wanted  to  rob  her  of  the  child.  Even  when  a 
great  cheer  went  up  from  the  crowd,  and  was  echoed  by 

53 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

another  from  the  factory,  with  an  accompaniment  of 
waving  bare,  leather-stained  arms  and  hands,  that  ex 
pression  of  desperate  defiance  instead  of  the  joy  of  re 
covery  did  not  leave  her  face,  not  until  she  saw  Jim 
Tenny's  face  working  with  repressed  emotion  and  met 
his  eyes  full  of  the  memory  of  old  comradeship.  Then 
her  bold  heart  and  her  pride  all  melted  and  she  burst 
out  in  a  great  wail  before  them  all. 

"  Oh,  Jim!"  she  cried  out.  "  Oh,  Jim,  I  lost  you,  and 
then  I  thought  I'd  lost  her!  Oh,  Jim!" 

Then  there  was  a  chorus  of  feminine  sobs,  for  Eva's 
wild  weeping  had  precipitated  the  ready  sympathy 
of  half  the  girls  present.  The  men  started  a  cheer  to 
cover  a  certain  chivalrous  shamefacedness  which  was 
upon  them  at  the  sight  of  the  girl's  grief,  and  another 
cheer  from  the  factory  echoed  it.  Then  came  another 
sound,  the  great  steam- whistle  of  Lloyd's;  then  the 
whistles  of  the  other  neighboring  factories  responded, 
and  people  began  to  swarm  out  of  them,  and  the  win 
dows  to  fill  with  eager  faces.  Jim  Tenny  grasped 
Eva's  arm  with  a  grasp  like  a  vise.  "  Come  this  way," 
said  he,  sharply.  "Come  this  way,  Eva." 

"Oh,  Jim!  oh,  Jim!"  Eva  sobbed  again;  but  she 
followed  him,  little  Ellen's  golden  fleece  tossing  over 
her  shoulder. 

"She's  got  her;  she's  got  her!"  shouted  the  people. 

Then  the  leather-stained  hands  gyrated,  the  cheers 
went  up,  and  again  the  whistles  blew. 

Jim  Tenny,  with  his  hand  on  Eva's  arm,  pushed  his 
way  through  the  crowd. 

"Where  you  goin',  Jim?"  asked  the  pretty  girl  at 
his  elbow,  but  he  pushed  past  her  roughly,  and  did  not 
seem  to  hear.  Eva's  face  was  all  inflamed  and  con 
vulsed  with  sobs,  but  she  did  not  dream  of  covering  it- 
she  was  full  of  the  holy  shamelessness  of  grief  and  joy. 
"  Let  me  see  her  !  let  me  see  her  !  Oh,  the  dear  little 

54 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

thing,  only  look  at  her  !  Where  have  you  been,  precious  ? 
Are  you  hungry?  Oh,  Nellie,  she  is  hungry,  I  know! 
She  looks  thin.  Run  over  to  the  bakery  and  buy  her 
some  cookies,  quick!  Are  you  cold?  Give  her  this 
sacque.  Only  look  at  her!  Kate,  only  look  at  her! 
Are  you  hurt,  darling?  Has  anybody  hurt  you?  If 
anybody  has,  he  shall  be  hung!  Oh,  you  darling! 
Only  see  her,  'Liza." 

But  Jim  Tenny,  his  mouth  set,  his  black  brows  scowl 
ing,  his  hard  grasp  on  Eva's  arm,  pushed  straight 
through  the  gathering  crowd  until  they  came  to  Clark- 
son's  stables  at  the  rear  of  Lloyd's,  where  he  kept  his 
horse  and  buggy — for  he  lived  at  a  distance  from  his 
work,  and  drove  over  every  morning.  He  pointed  to  a 
chair  which  a  hostler  had  occupied,  tilted  against  the 
wall,  for  a  morning  smoke,  after  the  horses  were  fed 
and  watered,  and  which  he  had  vacated  to  join  the 
jubilant  crowd.  "Sit  down  there,"  he  said  to  Eva. 
Then  he  hailed  a  staring  man  coming  out  of  the  office. 
"Here,  help  me  in  with  my  horse,  quick!"  said  he. 

The  man  stared  still,  with  slowly  rising  indignation. 
He  was  portly  and  middle-aged,  the  senior  partner  of 
the  firm,  who  seldom  touched  his  own  horses  of  late 
years,  and  had  a  son  at  Harvard.  "What's  to  pay? 
What  do  you  mean?  Anybody  sick?"  he  a.sked. 

"Help  me  into  the  buggy  with  my  horse!"  shouted 
Jim  Tenny.  "I  tell  you  the  child  is  found,  and  I've 
got  to  take  it  home  to  its  folks." 

"  Don't  they  know  yet?     Is  that  it?" 

"Yes,  I  tell  you."  Jim  was  backing  out  his  horse 
as  he  spoke. 

Mr.  Clarkson  seized  a  harness  and  threw  the  collar 
over  the  horse's  head,  \vhile  Jim  ran  out  the  buggy. 
When  Mr.  Clarkson  lifted  Eva  and  Ellen  into  the  buggy 
he  gave  the  child's  head  a  pat.  "  God  bless  it!"  he  said, 
and  his  voice  broke. 

55 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

The  horse  was  restive.  Jim  took  a  leap  into  the 
buggy  at  Eva's  side,  and  they  were  out  with  a  dash  and 
a  swift  rattle.  The  crowd  parted  before  them,  and  cheer 
after  cheer  went  up.  The  whistles  sounded  again. 
Then  all  the  city  bells  rang  out.  They  were  signalling 
the  other  searchers  that  the  child  was  found.  Jim 
and  Eva  and  Ellen  made  a  progress  of  triumph  down 
the  street.  The  crowd  pursued  them  with  cheers  of 
rejoicing;  doors  and  windows  flew  open;  the  house- 
yards  were  full  of  people.  Jim  drove  as  fast  as  he 
could,  scowling  hard  to  hide  his  tenderness  and  pity. 
Eva  sat  by  his  side,  weeping  in  her  terrible  candor  of 
grief  and  joy,  and  Ellen's  golden  locks  tossed  on  her 
shoulder. 


CHAPTER  VI 

As  Jim  Tenny,  with  Eva  Loud  and  the  child,  drove 
down  the  road  towards  the  Brewster  house,  his  horse  and 
buggy  became  the  nucleus  of  a  gathering  procession, 
shouting  and  exclaiming,  with  voices  all  tuned  to  one 
key  of  passionate  S3anpathy.  There  were  even  many 
women  of  the  poorer  class  who  had  no  sense  of  inde 
cency  in  following  the  utmost  lead  of  their  tender  emo 
tions.  Some  of  them  bore  children  of  their  own  in  their 
arms,  and  were  telling  them  with  passionate  croonings 
to  look  at  the  other  little  girl  in  the  carriage  who  had 
been  lost,  and  gone  away  a  whole  day  and  two  nights 
from  her  mother.  They  often  called  out  fondly  to  Ellen 
and  Eva,  and  ordered  Jim  to  wait  a  moment  that  they 
might  look  at  the  poor  darling.  But  Jim  drove  on  as 
fast  as  he  was  able,  though  he  had  sometimes  to  rein 
his  horse  sharply  to  avoid  riding  down  some  lean  racing 
boys,  who  would  now  and  then  shoot  ahead  of  him  with 
loud  whoops  of  triumph.  Once  as  he  drove  he  laid  one 
hand  caressingly  over  Eva's.  "Poor  girl!"  he  said, 
hoarsely  and  shamefacedly,  and  Eva  sobbed  loudly. 
When  Jim  reached  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster's  house  there 
was  a  swift  displacement  of  lights  and  shadows  in  a 
wi  low,  a  door  flew  open,  and  the  gaunt  old  woman 
was  at  the  wrheel. 

"Stop!"  she  cried.  "Stop!  Bring  her  in  here  to 
me  !  Let  me  have  her  !  Give  her  to  me ;  I  have  got 
everything  ready  !  Come,  Ellen  —  come  to  grand- 
m  Jier!" 

i  hen  there  was  a  mad  rush  from  the  opposite  direc- 

57 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

tion,  and  the  child's  mother  was  there,  reaching  into  the 
buggy  with  fierce  arms  of  love  and  longing.  "Give 
her  to  me!"  she  shrieked  out.  "Give  me  my  baby, 
Eva  Loud!  Oh,  Ellen,  where  have  you  been?" 

Fanny  Brewster  dragged  her  child  from  her  sister's 
arms  so  forcibly  that  she  seemed  fairly  to  fly  over  the 
wheel.  Then  she  strained  her  to  her  hungry  bosom, 
covering  her  with  kisses,  wetting  her  soft  face  and  yellow 
hair  with  tears. 

"My  baby,  mother's  darling,  mother's  baby!"  she 
gasped  out  with  great  pants  of  satisfied  love;  but  an 
other  pair  of  lean,  wiry  old  arms  stole  around  the  child's 
slender  body. 

"Give  her  to  me  !"  demanded  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster. 
"  She  is  my  son's  child,  and  I  have  a  right  to  her  !  You 
will  kill  her,  goin'  on  so  over  her.  Give  her  to  me  ! 
I  have  everything  all  ready  in  my  house  to  take  care  of 
her.  Give  her  to  me,  Fanny  Loud  !" 

"Keep  your  hands  off  her!"  cried  Fanny.  "She's 
my  own  baby,  and  nobody's  goin'  to  take  her  away 
from  me,  I  guess." 

"Give  her  to  me  this  minute!"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes 
Brewster.  "You'll  kill  her,  goin'  on  so.  You're 
frightenin'  her  to  death.  Give  her  to  me  this  minute  !" 

Ellen,  meanwhile,  that  little  tender  blossom  tossed 
helplessly  by  contending  waves  of  love,  was  weeping 
and  trembling  with  joy  at  the  feel  of  her  mother's  arms 
and  with  awe  and  terror  at  this  tempest  of  passion  which 
she  had  evoked. 

"Give  her  to  me!"  demanded  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brew 
ster. 

The  crowd  who  had  followed  stood  gaping  with  work 
ing  faces.  The  mothers  wept  over  their  own  children. 
Eva  stood  at  her  sister's  elbow,  with  a  hand  on  one  of  the 
child's,  which  was  laid  over  Fanny's  shoulder.  Jim 
Tenny  had  his  face  hidden  on  his  horse's  neck. 

58 


"'SHE'S  GOT  HER!'  SHOUTED  THE  PEOPLE' 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Give  her  to  me!"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes  again.  "Give 
her  to  me,  I  say  !  I  am  her  own  grandmother  !" 

"  And  I  am  her  own  mother  !"  called  out  Fanny,  with 
a  great  master-note  of  love  and  triumph  and  defiance. 
"Fin  her  own  mother,  and  Fve  got  her,  and  nobody 
but  God  shall  take  her  from  me  again."  The  tears 
streamed  down  her  cheeks ;  she  kissed  the  child  with 
pale,  parted  lips.  She  was  at  once  pathetic  and  terrible. 
She  was  human  love  and  selfishness  incarnate. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster  stared  at  her,  and  her  face 
changed  suddenly  and  softened.  She  turned  and  went 
back  into  her  own  house.  Her  gray  head  appeared  a 
second  beside  her  window,  then  sank  out  of  sight.  She 
was  kneeling  there  with  her  Bible  at  her  side,  a  sudden 
sweet  humility  of  thankfulness  rising  from  her  whole 
spirit  like  a  perfume,  when  Fanny,  with  Eva  following, 
still  clinging  to  the  child's  little  hand  over  her  sister's 
shoulder,  went  across  the  yard  to  her  own  house  to  tell 
her  husband.  The  others  followed,  and  stood  about 
outside,  listening  with  curiosity  sanctified  by  intensest 
sympathy.  One  nervous-faced  boy  leaped  on  the 
slant  of  the  bulkhead  to  peer  in  a  window  of  the  sitting- 
room,  and  when  his  mother  pulled  him  back  forcibly, 
rubbed  his  grimy  little  knuckles  across  his  eyes,  and  a 
dark  smooch  appeared  on  his  nose  and  cheeks.  He 
was  a  young  boy,  very  small  and  thin  for  his  age.  He 
whispered  to  his  mother  and  she  nodded,  and  he  darted 
off  in  the  direction  of  his  own  home. 

Andrew  Brewster  had  just  come  home  after  an  all- 
night's  search,  and  he  was  in  his  bedroom  in  the  bitter 
sleep  of  utter  exhaustion  and  despair.  Suddenly  his 
heart  had  failed  him  and  his  brain  had  reeled.  He  had 
begun  to  feel  dazed,  to  forget  for  a  minute  what  he  was 
looking  for.  He  had  made  incoherent  replies  to  the  men 
with  him,  and  finally  one,  after  a  whispered  consultation 
with  the  others,  had  said:  "Look  at  here,  Andrew, 

59 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

old  fellow;  you'd  better  go  home  and  rest  a  bit.  We'll 
look  all  the  harder  while  you're  gone,  and  maybe  she'll 
be  found  when  you  wake  up." 

"Who  will  be  found?"  Andrew  asked,  with  a  dazed 
look.  He  reeled  as  if  he  were  drunk. 

"  Ain't  had  anything,  has  he?"  one  of  the  men  whis 
pered. 

"Not  a  drop  to  my  knowledge." 

Andrew's  lips  trembled  perceptibly ;  his  forehead  was 
knitted  with  vacuous  perplexity;  his  eyes  reflected 
blanks  of  unreason;  his  whole  body  had  an  effect  of 
weak  settling  and  subsidence.  The  man  who  worked 
next  to  him  in  the  cutting-room  at  Lloyd's,  and  had 
searched  at  his  side  indcfatigably  from  the  first,  stole  a 
tender  hand  under  his  shoulder.  "Come  along  with 
me,  old  man,"  he  said,  and  Andrew  obeyed. 

When  Fanny  and  Eva  came  in  with  the  child,  he  lay 
prostrate  on  the  bed,  and  scarcely  seemed  to  breathe. 
A  great  qualm  of  fear  shot  over  Fanny  for  a  second. 
His  father  had  died  of  heart-disease. 

"  Is  he — dead?"  she  gasped  to  Eva. 

"No,  of  course  he  ain't,"  said  Eva.  "He's  asleep; 
he's  wore  out.  Andrew,  Andrew,  Andrew,  wake  up! 
She's  found,  Andrew;  Ellen's  found."  But  Andrew 
did  not  stir. 

"  He  is!"  gasped  Faniw,  again. 

"  No,  he  ain't.  Andrew,  Andrew  Brewster,  wake  up, 
wake  up!  Ellen's  here!  She's  found!" 

Fanny  put  Ellen  down,  and  bent  over  Andrew  and 
listened.  "No,  I  can  hear  him  breathe,"  she  cried. 
Then  she  kissed  him,  and  leaned  her  mouth  close  to 
his  ear.  "Andrew!"  she  said,  in  a  voice  which  Eva 
and  Ellen  had  never  heard  before.  "Andrew,  poor 
old  man,  wake  up;  she's  found  !  Our  child  is 
found!" 

When  Andrew  still  did  not  wake,  but  only  stirred, 

60 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  moaned  faintly,  Fanny  lifted  Ellen  onto  the  bed. 
"Kiss  poor  father,  and  wake  him/'  she  told  her. 

Ellen, whose  blue  eyes  were  big  with  fright  and  wonder, 
whose  lips  were  quivering,  and  whose  little  body  was 
vibrating  with  the  strain  of  her  nerves,  laid  her  soft 
cheek  against  her  father's  rough,  pale  one,  and  stole  a 
little  arm  under  his  neck.  "Father,  wake  up  !"  she 
called  out  in  her  little,  trembling,  sweet  voice,  and  that 
reached  Andrew  Brewster  in  the  depths  of  his  own 
physical  inertness.  He  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  at 
the  child,  and  the  light  came  into  them,  and  then  the 
sound  of  his  sobbing  filled  the  house  and  reached  the 
people  out  in  the  37ard,  and  an  echo  arose  from  them. 
Gradually  the  crowd  dispersed.  Jim  Tenny,  before  he 
drove  away,  went  to  the  door  and  spoke  to  Eva. 

"  An}7thing  I  can  do?"  he  asked,  with  a  curious,  ten 
der  roughness.  He  did  not  look  at  her  as  he  spoke. 

"  No ;  thank  you,  Jim,"  replied  Eva. 

Suddenly  the  young  man  reached  out  a  hand  and 
stroked  her  rough  hair.  "  Well,  take  care  of  yourself, 
old  girl,"  he  said. 

Eva  went  to  her  sister  as  Jim  went  out  of  the  yard. 
Ellen  was  in  the  sitting-room  with  her  father,  and  Fanny 
had  gone  to  the  kitchen  to  heat  some  milk  for  the  child, 
whom  she  firmly  believed  to  have  had  nothing  to  eat 
during  her  absence. 

"Fanny,"  said  Eva. 

"  Well?"  said  Fanny.  "  I  can't  stop;  I  must  get  some 
milk  for  her;  she  must  be  'most  starved." 

Fanny  turned  and  looked  at  Eva,  who  cast  down  her 
eyes  before  her  in  a  very  shamefacedness  of  happiness 
and  contrition. 

"Why,  what  is  it?"  repeated  Fanny,  staring  at  her. 

"I've  got  Jim  back,  I  guess,  as  well  as  Ellen,"  said 
Eva,  "  and  I'm  going  to  be  a  good  woman." 

After  all  the  crowd  of  people  outside  had  gone,  the 

61 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

little  nervous  boy  raced  into  the  Brewster  yard  with  a 
tin  cup  of  chestnuts  in  his  hand.  He  knocked  at  the 
side  door,  and  when  Fanny  opened  it  he  thrust  them 
upon  her.  "They're  for  her  !"  he  blurted  out,  and  was 
gone,  racing  like  a  deer. 

"Don't  you  want  the  cup  back?"  Fanny  shouted 
after  him. 

"  No,  ma'am,"  he  called  back,  and  that,  although  his 
mother  had  charged  him  to  bring  back  the  cup  or  he 
would  get  a  scolding. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ELLEN  had  clung  fast  all  the  time  to  her  doll,  her 
bunch  of  pinks,  and  her  cup  and  saucer ;  or,  rather,  she 
had  guarded  them  jealously.  "  Where  did  you  get 
all  these  things?"  her  aunt  Eva  had  asked  her,  amazed- 
ly,  when  she  first  caught  sight  of  her,  and  then  had  not 
waited  for  an  answer  in  her  wild  excitement  of  joy  at  the 
recovery  of  the  child.  The  great,  smiling  wax  doll  had 
ridden  between  Jim  and  Eva  in  the  buggy,  Eva  had  held 
the  pink  cup  and  saucer  with  a  kind  of  mechanical 
carefulness,  and  Ellen  herself  clutched  the  pinks  in  one 
little  hand,  though  she  crushed  them  against  her  aunt's 
bosom  as  she  sat  in  her  lap.  Ellen's  grandmother  and 
aunt  had  glanced  at  these  treasures  with  momentary 
astonishment,  and  so  had  her  mother,  but  curiosity  was 
in  abeyance  for  both  of  them  for  the  time;  rapture  at 
the  sight  of  the  beloved  child  at  whose  loss  they  had 
suffered  such  agonies  was  the  one  emotion  of  their  souls. 
But  later  investigation  was  to  follow. 

When  Ellen  did  not  seem  to  care  for  her  hot  milk  liber 
ally  sweetened  in  her  own  mug,  and  griddle-cakes  with 
plenty  of  syrup,  her  mother  looked  at  her,  and  her  eyes 
of  love  sharpened  with  inquiry.  "Ain't  you  hungry?" 
she  said.  Ellen  shook  her  head.  She  was  sitting  at  the 
table  in  the  dining-room,  and  her  father,  mother,  and 
aunt  were  all  hovering  about  her,  watching  her.  Some 
of  the  neighbor  women  were  also  in  the  room,  staring 
with  a  sort  of  deprecating  tenderness  of  curiosity. 

"Do  you  feel  sick?"  Ellen's  father  inquired,  anx 
iously. 

63 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  don't  feel  sick,  do  you?"  repeated  her  mother. 

Ellen  shook  her  head. 

Just  then  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster  came  in  with  her 
black  -  and  -  white  -  checked  shawl  pinned  around  her 
gaunt  old  face,  which  had  in  it  a  strange  softness  and 
sweetness,  which  made  Fanny  look  at  her  again,  after 
the  first  glance,  and  not  know  why. 

"We've  got  our  blessing  back  again,  mother,"  said 
her  son  Andrew,  in  a  broken  voice. 

"But  she  won't  eat  her  breakfast,  now  mother  has 
gone  and  cooked  it  for  her,  so  nice,  too,"  said  Fanny, 
in  a  tone  of  confidence  which  she  had  never  before  used 
towards  Mrs.  Zelotes. 

"You  don't  feel  sick,  do  3Tou,  Ellen?"  asked  her 
grandmother. 

Ellen  shook  her  head.     "  No,  ma'am,"  said  she. 

"  She  says  she  don't  feel  sick,  and  she  ain't  hungry," 
Andrew  said,  anxiously. 

"I  wonder  if  she  would  eat  one  of  my  new  dough 
nuts.  Fve  got  some  real  nice  ones,"  said  a  neighbor — 
the  stout  woman  from  the  next  house,  whose  breadth 
of  body  seemed  to  symbolize  a  corresponding  spiritual 
breadth  of  motherliness,  as  she  stood  there  looking 
at  the  child  who  had  been  lost  and  was  found. 

"Don't  you  want  one  of  Aunty  Wetherhed's  nice 
doughnuts?"  asked  Fanny. 

"No;  I  thank  you,"  replied  Ellen.  Eva  started  sud 
denly  with  an  air  of  mysterious  purpose,  opened  a  door, 
ran  down  cellar,  and  returned  with  a  tumbler  of  jelly, 
but  Ellen  shook  her  head  even  at  that. 

"Have  you  had  your  breakfast?"  said  Fanny. 

Then  Ellen  was  utterly  quiet.  She  did  not  speak; 
she  made  no  sign  or  motion.  She  sat  still,  looking 
straight  before  her. 

"Don't  you  hear,  Ellen?"  said  Andrew.  "Have  you 
had  your  breakfast  this  morning?" 

64 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Tell  Auntie  Eva  if  you  have  had  your  breakfast/' 
Eva  said. 

Mrs.  Zclotes  Brewster  spoke  with  more  authority, 
and  she  went  further. 

"Tell  grandmother  if  you  have  had  your  breakfast, 
and  where  you  had  it,"  said  she. 

But  Ellen  was  dumb  and  motionless.  They  all 
looked  at  one  another.  "  Tell  Aunty  Wetherhed :  that's 
a  good  girl,"  said  the  stout  woman. 

"  Where  are  those  things  she  had  when  I  first  saw 
her?"  asked  Mrs.  Zelotes,  suddenly.  Eva  went  into 
the  sitting-room,  and  fetched  them  out — the  bunch  of 
pinks,  the  cup  and  saucer,  and  the  doll.  Ellen's  eyes 
gave  a  quick  look  of  love  and  delight  at  the  doll. 

"She  had  these,  luggin'  along  in  her  little  arms, 
when  I  first  caught  sight  of  her  comin',"  said  Eva. 

"Where  did  you  get  them,  Ellen?"  asked  Fanny. 
"  Who  gave  them  to  you?" 

Ellen  was  silent,  with  all  their  inquiring  eyes  fixed 
upon  her  face  like  a  compelling  battery.  "  Where 
have  you  been,  Ellen,  all  the  time  you  have  been  gone?" 
asked  Mrs.  Zelotes.  "  Now  you  have  got  back  safe, 
you  must  tell  us  where  you  have  been." 

Andrew  stooped  his  head  down  to  the  child's,  and 
rubbed  his  rough  cheek  against  her  soft  one,  with  his 
old  facetious  caress.  "  Tell  father  where  you've  been," 
he  whispered.  Ellen  gave  him  a  little  piteous  glance, 
and  her  lip  quivered,  but  she  did  not  speak. 

"  Where  do  you  s'pose  she  got  them?"  whispered  one 
neighbor  to  another. 

"I  can't  imagine;  that's  a  beautiful  doll." 

"  Ain't  it?  It  must  have  cost  a  lot.  I  know,  because 
my  Hattie  had  one  her  aunt  gave  her  last  Christmas; 
that  one  cost  a  dollar  and  ninety-eight  cents,  and  it 
didn't  begin  to  compare  with  this.  That's  a  handsome 
cup  and  saucer,  too." 

65 


THE     PORTION     OP     LABOR 

"  Yes,  but  you  can  get  real  handsome  cups  and  sau 
cers  to  Crosby's  for  twenty-five  cents.  I  don't  think  so 
much  of  that." 

"Them  pinks  must  have  come  from  a  greenhouse." 

"Yes,  they  must." 

"  Well,  there's  lots  of  greenhouses  in  the  city  besides 
the  florists.  That  don't  help  much."  Then  the  first 
woman  inclined  her  lips  closely  to  the  other  woman's 
ear  and  whispered,  causing  the  other  to  start  back. 
"  No,  I  can't  believe  she  would,"  said  she. 

"She  came  from  those  Louds  on  her  mother's  side," 
whispered  the  first  woman,  guardedly,  with  dark  em 
phasis. 

"Ellen,"  said  Fanny,  suddenly,  and  almost  sharply, 
"you  didn't  take  those  things  in  any  way  you  hadn't 
ought  to,  did  you?  Tell  mother." 

"Fanny!"  cried  Andrew. 

"If  she  did,  it's  the  first  time  a  Brewster  ever  stole/' 
said  Mrs.  Zelotes.  Her  face  was  no  longer  strange  with 
unwonted  sweetness  as  she  looked  at  Fanny. 

Andrew  put  his  face  down  to  Ellen's  again.  "  Father 
knows  she  didn't  steal  the  things;  never  mind,"  he 
whispered. 

Suddenly  the  stout  woman  made  a  soft,  ponderous 
rush  out  of  the  room  and  the  house.  She  passed  the 
window  with  oscillating  swiftness. 

"Where's  Miss  Wetherhed  gone?"  said  one  woman 
to  another. 

"She's  thought  of  somethin'." 

"Maybe  she  left  her  bread  in  the  oven." 

"No,  she's  thought  of  somethin'." 

A  very  old  lady,  who  had  been  sitting  in  a  rocking- 
chair  on  the  other  side  of  the  room,  rose  trembling  and 
came  to  Ellen  and  leaned  over  her,  looking  at  her  with 
small,  black,  bright  eyes  through  gold-rimmed  spec 
tacles.  The  old  woman  was  deaf,  and  her  voice  was 

66 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

shrill  and  high-pitched  to  reach  her  own  consciousness. 
"  What  did  such  a  good  little  girl  as  you  be  run  away 
from  father  and  mother  for?"  she  piped,  going  back 
to  first  principles  and  the  root  of  the  whole  matter, 
since  she  had  heard  nothing  of  the  discussion  which 
had  been  going  on  about  her,  and  had  supposed  it  to 
deal  with  them. 

Ellen  gasped.  Suddenly  all  her  first  woe  returned 
upon  her  recollection.  She  turned  innocent,  accusing 
eyes  upon  her  father's  loving  face,  then  her  mother's 
and  aunt's.  "  You  said — you  said — you —  "  she  stam 
mered  out,  but  then  her  father  and  mother  were  both 
down  upon  their  knees  before  her  in  her  chair  embrac 
ing  her,  and  Eva,  too,  seized  her  little  hands.  "You 
mustn't  ever  think  of  what  you  heard  father  and 
mother  say,  Ellen,"  Andrew  said,  solemnly.  "You 
must  forget  all  about  it.  Father  and  mother  were  both 
very  wrong  and  wicked — " 

"  And  Aunt  Eva,  too,"  sobbed  Eva. 

"And  they  didn't  mean  what  they  said,"  continued 
Andrew.  "  You  are  the  greatest  blessing  in  this  whole 
world  to  father  and  mother;  you're  all  they  have  got. 
You  don't  know'  \vhat  father  and  mother  have  been 
through,  thinking  you  were  lost  and  they  might  never 
see  their  little  girl  again.  Now  you  mustn't  ever  think 
of  what  they  said  again." 

"And  you  won't  ever  hear  them  say  it  again,  Ellen," 
Fanny  Brewster  said,  with  a  noble  humbling  of  herself 
before  her  child. 

"  No,  you  won't,"  said  Eva. 

"Mother  is  goin'  to  try  to  do  better,  and  have  more 
patience,  and  not  let  you  hear  such  talk  any  more," 
said  Fanny,  kissing  Ellen  passionately,  and  rising 
with  Andrew's  arm  around  her. 

"I'm  going  to  try,  too,  Ellen,"  said  Eva. 

The  stout  woman  came  padding  softly  and  heavily 

67 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

into  the  room,  and  there  was  a  bright-blue  silken  gleam 
in  her  hand.  She  waved  a  whole  yard  of  silk  of 
the  most  brilliant  blue  before  Ellen's  dazzled  eyes. 
"There!"  said  she,  triumphantly,  "if  you  will  tell 
Aunty  Wetherhed  \vhere  you've  been,  and  all  about  it, 
she'll  give  you  all  this  beautiful  silk  to  make  a  new 
dress  for  your  new  dolly." 

Ellen  looked  in  the  woman's  face,  she  looked  at  the 
blue  silk,  and  she  looked  at  the  doll,  but  she  was  silent. 

"Only  think  what  a  beautiful  dress  it  will  make  !" 
said  a  woman. 

"And  see  how  pretty  it  goes  with  the  dolly's  light 
hair,"  said  Fanny. 

"Ellen,"  whispered  Andrew,  "you  tell  father,  and 
he'll  buy  you  a  whole  pound  of  candy  down  to  the  store. " 

"I  shouldn't  wonder  if  I  could  find  something  to 
make  your  dolly  a  cloak,"  said  a  woman. 

"And  I'll  make  her  a  beautiful  little  bonnet,  if  you'll 
tell,"  said  another. 

" Only  think,  a  whole  pound  of  candy!"  said  Andrew. 

"I'll  buy  you  a  gold  ring,"  Eva  cried  out — "a  gold 
ring  with  a  little  blue  stone  in  it." 

"  And  you  shall  go  to  ride  with  mother  on  the  cars  to 
morrow,"  said  Fanny. 

"  Father  will  get  you  some  oranges,  too,"  said  Andrew. 

But  Ellen  sat  silent  and  unmoved  by  all  that  sweet 
bribery,  a  little  martyr  to  something  within  herself;  a 
sense  of  honor,  love  for  the  lady  who  had  concealed 
her,  and  upon  whom  her  confession  might  bring  some 
dire  penalty;  or  perhaps  she  was  strengthened  in  her 
silence  by  something  less  worthy — possibly  that  stiff- 
neckedness  which  had  descended  to  her  from  a  long 
line  of  Puritans  upon  her  father's  side.  At  all  events 
she  was  silent,  and  opposed  successfully  her  one  little 
new  will  to  the  onslaught  of  all  those  older  and  more 
experienced  ones  before  her,  though  nobody  knew 

68 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

at  what  cost  of  agony  to  herself.  She  had  always 
been  a  singularly  docile  and  obedient  child;  this  was 
the  first  persistent  disobedience  of  her  whole  life,  and  it 
reacted  upon  herself  with  a  cruel  spiritual  hurt.  She 
sat  clasping  the  great  doll,  the  pinks,  and  the  pink  cup 
and  saucer  before  her  on  the  table — a  lone  little  weak 
child,  opposing  her  single  individuality  against  so 
many,  and  to  her  own  hurt  and  horror  and  self-con 
demnation,  and  she  did  not  weaken ;  but  all  at  once  her 
head  drooped  on  one  side,  and  her  father  caught  her. 

"  There !  you  can  all  stop  tormentin'  this  blessed 
child!"  he  cried.  "Ellen,  Ellen,  look  at  father!  Oh, 
mother,  look  here;  she's  fainted  dead  away!" 

"Fanny!" 

When  Ellen  came  to  herself  she  was  on  the  bed  in 
her  mother's  room,  and  her  aunt  Eva  was  putting 
some  of  her  beautiful  cologne  on  her  head,  and  her 
mother  was  trying  to  make  her  drink  water,  and  her 
grandmother  had  a  glass  of  her  currant  wine,  and  they 
were  calling  to  her  with  voices  of  far-off  love,  as  if  from 
another  world. 

And  after  that  she  was  questioned  no  more  about 
her  mysterious  journey. 

"  Wherever  she  has  been,  she  has  got  no  harm,"  said 
Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster,  "and  there's  no  use  in  trying  to 
drive  a  child,  when  it  comes  of  our  family.  She's  got 
some  notion  in  her  head,  and  you've  got  to  leave  her 
alone  to  get  over  it.  She's  got  back  safe  and  sound, 
and  that's  the  main  thing." 

"I  wish  I  knew  where  she  got  those  things,"  Fanny 
said.  Looseness  of  principle  as  to  property  rights  was 
not  as  strange  to  her  imagination  as  to  that  of  her 
mother-in-law. 

For  a  long  time  afterwards  she  passed  consciously 
and  uneasily  by  cups  and  saucers  in  stores,  and  \vould 
not  look  their  way  lest  she  should  see  the  counterpart  of 

69 


TIIK     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen's,  which  was  Sevres,  and  worth  more  than  the 
whole  counterfnl,  had  she  only  known  it,  and  she  hurried 
past  the  florists  who  displaj^ed  pinks  in  their  windows. 
The  doll  was  evidently  not  new,  and  she  had  not  the 
same  anxiety  with  regard  to  that. 

No  one  was  allowed  to  ask  Ellen  further  questions 
that  day,  not  even  the  reporters,  who  went  away  quite 
baffled  by  this  infantile  pertinacity  in  silence,  and 
were  forced  to  draw  upon  their  imaginations,  with 
results  varying  from  realistic  horrors  to  Alice  in  Won 
derland.  Ellen  was  kissed  and  cuddled  by  some  women 
and  young  girls,  but  not  many  were  allowed  to  see  her. 
The  doctor  had  been  called  in  after  her  fainting-fit, 
and  pronounced  it  as  his  opinion  that  she  was  a  very 
nervous  child,  and  had  been  under  a  severe  strain,  and 
he  would  not  answer  for  the  result  if  she  were  to  be 
further  excited. 

"Let  her  have  her  own  way:  if  she  wants  to  talk, 
let  her,  and  if  she  wants  to  be  silent,  let  her  alone.  She 
is  as  delicate  as  that  cup,"  said  the  doctor,  looking  at 
the  shell-like  thing  which  Ellen  had  brought  home, 
with  some  curiosity. 

70 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THAT  evening  Lyman  Risley  came  to  see  Cynthia. 
He  looked  at  her  anxiousty  and  scrutinizingly  when  he 
entered  the  room,  and  did  not  respond  to  her  salutation. 

"Well,  I  have  seen  the  child,"  he  said,  in  a  hushed 
voice,  with  a  look  towards  the  door  as  he  seated  himself 
before  the  fire  and  spread  out  his  hands  towards  the 
blaze.  He  looked  nervous  and  chilly. 

"How  did  she  look?"  asked  Cynthia. 

"Why  in  the  name  of  common  -  sense,  Cynthia," 
he  said,  abruptly,  without  noticing  her  query,  "  if  you 
had  to  give  that  child  china  for  a  souvenir,  didn't  you 
give  her  something  besides  Royal  Sevres?"  Lyman 
Risley  undoubtedly  looked  younger  than  Cynthia, 
but  his  manner  even  more  than  his  looks  gave  him  the 
appearance  of  comparative  youth.  There  was  in  it  a 
vehemence  and  impetuosity  almost  like  that  of  a  boy. 
Cynthia,  with  her  strained  nervous  intensity,  seemed 
very  much  older. 

"  Why  not?"  said  she. 

"Why  not?  Well,  it  is  fortunate  for  you  that  those 
people  have  a  knowledge  for  the  most  part  of  the  fun 
damental  properties  of  the  drama  of  life,  such  as  bread- 
and-butter,  and  a  table  from  which  to  eat  it,  and  a  knife 
with  which  to  cut  it,  and  a  bed  in  which  to  sleep,  and  a 
stove  and  coal,  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  and  that  the  ar 
tistic  accessories,  such  as  Royal  Sevres,  which  is  no 
better  than  common  crockery  for  the  honest  purpose  of 
holding  the  tea  for  the  solace  of  the  thirsty  mouth  of 
labor,  is  beneath  their  attention." 

71 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"How  does  the  child  look,  Lyman?"  asked  Cynthia 
Lennox.  She  was  leaning  back  in  a  great  crimson- 
covered  chair  before  the  fire,  a  long,  slender,  grace 
ful  shape,  in  a  clinging  white  silk  gown  which 
was  a  favorite  of  hers  for  house  wear.  The  light 
in  the  room  was  subdued,  coming  mostly  through 
crimson  shades,  and  the  faint,  worn  lines  on  Cynthia's 
face  did  not  show ;  it  looked,  with  her  soft  crown  of  gray 
hair,  like  a  cameo  against  the  crimson  background 
of  the  chair.  The  man  beside  her  looked  at  her  with 
that  impatience  of  his  masculine  estate  and  his  superior 
youth,  and  yet  with  the  adoration  which  nothing  could 
conquer.  He  had  passed  two-thirds  of  his  life,  meta 
phorically,  at  this  woman's  feet,  and  had  formed  a  habit 
of  admiration  and  lovership  which  no  facts  nor  develop 
ments  could  ever  alter.  He  was  frowning,  he  replied 
with  a  certain  sharpness,  and  yet  he  leaned  towards 
her  as  he  spoke,  and  his  eyes  followed  her  long,  graceful 
lines  and  noted  the  clear  delicacy  of  her  features  a  gainst 
the  crimson  background.  "  How  the  child  looked — 
how  the  child  looked ;  Cynthia,  you  do  not  realize  what 
you  did.  You  have  not  the  faintest  realization  of  what 
it  means  for  a  woman  to  keep  a  lost  child  hidden  away 
as  you  did,  when  its  parents  and  half  the  city  were 
hunting  for  it.  I  tell  you  I  did  not  know  what  the 
consequences  might  be  to  you  if  it  were  found  out. 
There  is  wild  blood  in  a  city  like  this,  and  even  the  staid 
old  New  England  stream  is  capable  of  erratic  currents. 
I  tell  you  I  have  had  a  day  of  dreadful  anxiety,  and 
it  was  worse  because  I  had  to  be  guarded.  I  dared 
scarcely  speak  to  any  one  about  the  matter.  I  have 
listened  on  street  corners ;  I  have  made  errands  to  news 
paper  offices.  I  meant  to  get  you  away  if—  Well, 
never  mind — I  tell  you,  you  do  not  realize  what  you 
did,  Cynthia." 

Cynthia  glanced  at  him  without  moving  her  head, 

72 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

then  she  looked  away,  her  face  quivering  slightly, 
more  as  if  from  a  reflection  of  his  agitation  than  from 
her  own.  "You  say  you  saw  her,"  she  said. 

"This  afternoon,"  the  man  went  on,  "I  got  fairly 
desperate.  I  resolved  to  go  to  the  fountain-head  for 
information,  and  take  my  chances.  So  down  I  went 
to  Maple  Street,  where  the  Brewsters  live,  and  I  rang 
the  front-door  bell,  and  the  child's  aunt,  a  handsome, 
breathless  kind  of  creature,  came  and  ushered  me 
into  the  best  parlor,  and  went  into  the  next  room — 
the  sitting-room — to  call  the  others.  I  caught  sight  of 
enough  women  for  a  woman's  club  in  the  sitting-room. 
Then  Andrew  Brewster  came  in,  and  I  offered  my  legal 
services  out  of  friendly  interest  in  the  case,  and  in  that 
\\-ay  I  found  out  what  I  wanted  to.  Cynthia,  that 
child  has  not  told." 

Cynthia  raised  herself  and  sat  straight,  and  her 
face  flashed  like  a  white  flame.  "  Were  they  harsh  to 
her?"  she  demanded.  "Were  they  cruel?  Did  they 
question  her,  and  were  they  harsh  and  cruel  because 
she  would  not  tell?  Why  did  you  not  tell  them  yourself? 
Why  did  you  not,  Lyman  Risley?  Why  did  you  not 
tell  the  whole  story  rather  than  have  that  child  blamed? 
Well,  I  will  go  myself.  I  will  go  this  minute.  They 
shall  not  blame  that  darling.  What  do  you  think  I 
care  for  myself?  Let  them  lynch  me  if  they  want  to. 
I  will  go  this  minute!"  Cynthia  sprang  to  her  feet, 
but  Risley,  with  a  hoarse  shout  under  his  breath,  caught 
hold  of  her  and  forced  her  back. 

"For  God's  sake,  sit  down,  Cynthia!"  he  said. 
"  Didn't  you  hear  the  door-bell?  Somebody  is  coming." 

The  door-bell  had  in  fact  rung,  and  Cynthia  had  not 
noticed  it.  She  lay  back  in  her  chair  as  the  door  opened, 
and  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  entered.  "  Good  -  evening, 
Cynthia,"  she  said,  beamingly.  "I  thought  I  would 
stop  a  few  minutes  on  my  way  to  meeting.  I'm  rather 

73 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

early.  No,  don't  get  up,"  as  Cynthia  rose.  "Don't 
get  up ;  I  can  only  stay  a  minute.  Never  mind  about 
giving  me  a  chair,  Mr.  Risley — thank  you.  Yes,  this 
is  a  real  comfortable  chair."  Mrs.  Lloyd,  seated  where 
the  firelight  played  over  her  wide  sweep  of  rich  skirts, 
and  her  velvet  fur-trimmed  cloak  and  plumed  bonnet, 
beamed  upon  them  with  an  expansive  benevolence  and 
kindliness.  She  was  a  large,  handsome,  florid  woman. 
Her  grayish-brown  hair  was  carefully  crimped,  and 
looped  back  from  her  fat,  pink  cheeks,  a  fine  shell-and- 
gold  comb  surmounted  her  smooth  French  twist,  and 
held  her  bonnet  in  place.  She  unfastened  her  cloak, 
and  a  diamond  brooch  at  her  throat  caught  the  light 
and  blazed  red  like  a  ruby.  She  was  the  wife  of  Nor 
man  Lk>3Td,  the  largest  shoe-manufacturer  in  the  place. 
There  was  between  her  and  Cynthia  a  sort  of  rela 
tionship  by  marriage.  Norman  Lloyd's  brother  George 
had  married  Cynthia's  sister,  who  had  died  ten  years 
before,  and  of  whose  little  son,  Robert,  Cynthia  had 
had  the  charge.  Now  George,  who  was  a  lawyer  in 
St.  Louis,  had  married  again.  Mrs.  Norman  had 
sympathized  openly  with  Cynthia  when  the  child  was 
taken  from  Cynthia  at  his  father's  second  marriage. 
"I  call  it  a  shame,"  she  had  said,  "giving  that  child 
to  a  perfect  stranger  to  bring  up,  and  I  don't  see  any 
need  of  George's  marrying  again,  anyway.  I  don't 
know  what  I  should  do  if  I  thought  Norman  would 
marry  again  if  I  died.  I  think  one  husband  and 
one  wife  is  enough  for  any  man  or  woman  if  they 
believe  in  the  resurrection.  It  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  the  answer  to  that  awful  question  in 
the  New  Testament,  as  to  whose  wife  that  woman 
who  had  so  many  husbands  would  be  in  the  other 
world,  meant  that  people  who  had  done  so  much 
marrying  on  earth  would  have  to  be  old  maids 
and  old  bachelors  in  heaven.  George  ought  to  be 

74 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ashamed  of  himself,  and   Cynthia  ought  to  keep  that 
child." 

Ever  since  she  had  been  very  solicitously  friendly 
towards  Cynthia,  who  had  always  imperceptibly  held 
herself  ciloof  from  her,  owing  to  a  difference  in  degree. 
Cynthia  had  no  prejudices  of  mind,  but  many  of  nerves, 
and  this  woman  was  distinctly  not  of  her  sort,  though 
she  had  a  certain  liking  for  her.  Every  time  she  was 
brought  in  contact  with  her  she  had  a  painful  sense  of  a 
grating  adjustment  as  of  points  of  meeting  which  did 
not  dovetail  as  they  should.  Norman  Lloyd  repre 
sented  one  of  the  old  families  of  the  city,  distinguished 
by  large  possessions  and  college  training,  and  he  was 
the  first  of  his  race  to  engage  in  trade.  His  wife  came 
from  a  vastly  different  stock,  being  the  daughter  of  a 
shoe-manufacturer  herself,  and  the  granddaughter  of  a 
cobbler  who  had  tapped  his  neighbor's  shoes  in  his 
little  shop  in  the  L  of  his  humble  cottage  house.  Mrs. 
Norman  Lloyd  was  innocently  unconscious  of  any 
reason  for  concealing  the  fact,  and  was  fond,  when  driv 
ing  out  to  take  the  air  in  her  fine  carriage,  of  pointing  out 
to  any  stranger  who  happened  to  be  with  her  the  house 
where  her  grandfather  cobbled  shoes  and  laid  the  foun 
dation  of  the  family  fortune.  "  That  all  came  from 
that  little  shop  of  my  grandfather,"  she  would  say, 
pointing  proudly  at  Lloyd's  great  factory,  which  was 
not  far  from  the  old  cottage.  "  Mr.  Lloyd  didn't  have 
much  of  anything  when  I  married  him,  but  I  had  con 
siderable,  and  Mr.  Lloyd  went  into  the  factor}^,  and  he 
has  been  blessed,  and  the  property  has  increased  until 
it  has  come  to  this."  Mrs.  Lloyd's  chief  pride  was 
in  the  very  facts  which  others  deprecated.  When  she 
considered  the  many-windowed  pile  of  Lloyd's,  and  that 
her  husband  was  the  recognized  head  and  authority 
over  all  those  throngs  of  grimy  men,  walking  with  the 
stoop  of  daily  labor,  carrying  their  little  dinner-boxes 

75 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

with  mechanical  clutches  of  leather-tanned  fingers, 
she  used  to  send  up  a  prayer  for  humility,  lest  evil  and 
downfall  of  pride  come  to  her.  She  was  a  pious  woman, 
a  member  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  and  active  in 
charitable  work.  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  adored  her  hus 
band,  and  her  estimate  of  him  was  almost  ludicrously 
different  from  that  of  the  grimy  men  who  flocked  to  his 
factory,  she  seeing  a  most  kindly  spirited  and  amiable 
man,  devoting  himself  to  the  best  interests  of  his  em 
ploye's,  and  striving  ever  for  their  benefit  rather  than 
his  own,  and  the  others  seeing  an  aristocrat  by 
birth  and  training,  who  was  in  trade  because  of  shrewd 
business  instincts  and  a  longing  for  wealth  and  power, 
but  who  despised,  and  felt  himself  wholly  superior  to, 
the  means  by  which  it  was  acquired. 

"  We  ain't  anything  but  the  rounds  of  the  ladder  for 
Norman  Lloyd  to  climb  by,  and  he  only  sees  and  feels 
us  with  the  soles  of  his  patent-leathers/'  one  of  the 
turbulent  spirits  in  his  factory  said.  Mrs.  Norman 
Lloyd  would  not  have  believed  her  ears  had  she  heard 
him. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  had  not  sat  long  before  Cynthia's  fire 
that  evening  before  she  opened  on  the  subject  of  the 
lost  child.  "Oh,  Cynthia,  have  you  heard — "  she  be 
gan,  but  Risley  cut  her  short. 

"About  that  little  girl  who  ran  away?"  he  said. 
"Yes,  we  have;  we  were  just  talking  about  her." 

"Did  you  ever  hear  anything  like  it?"  said  Mrs. 
Lloyd.  "They  say  they  can't  find  out  where  she's 
been.  She  won't  tell.  Don't  you  believe  somebody 
has  threatened  her  if  she  does?" 

Cynthia  raised  herself  and  began  to  speak,  but  a 
slight,  almost  imperceptible  gesture  from  the  man 
beside  her  stopped  her. 

"What  did  you  say,  Cynthia?" 

"There  is  no  accounting  for  children's  freaks," 

76 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

said  Risley,  shortly  and  harshly.  Mrs.  Lloyd  was  not 
thin-skinned ;  such  a  current  of  exuberant  cordiality 
emanated  from  her  own  nature  that  she  was  not  very 
susceptible  to  any  counter-force.  Now,  however,  she 
felt  vaguely  and  wonderingly,  as  a  child  might  have 
done,  that  for  some  reason  Lyman  Risley  was  rude  to 
her,  and  she  had  a  sense  of  bewildered  injury.  Mrs. 
Lloyd  was  always,  moreover,  somewhat  anxious  as  to 
the  relations  between  Cynthia  and  Lyman  Risley. 
She  heard  a  deal  of  talk  about  it  first  and  last;  and 
while  she  had  no  word  of  unkind  comment  herself,  yet 
she  felt  at  times  uneasy.  "  Folks  do  talk  about  Cynthia 
and  Ljnnan  Risley  keeping  company  so  long,"  she  told 
her  husband ;  "  it's  as  much  as  twenty  years.  It  does 
seem  as  if  they  ought  to  get  married,  don't  you  think 
so,  Norman?  Do  you  suppose  it  is  because  the  property 
was  left  that  way — for  you  know  Lyman  hasn't  got 
anything  besides  what  he  earns — or  do  you  suppose  it 
is  because  Cynthia  doesn't  want  to  marry  him?  I 
guess  it  is  that.  Cynthia  never  seemed  to  me  as  if 
she  would  ever  care  enough  about  any  man  to  marry 
him.  I  guess  that's  it;  but  I  do  think  she  ought  to  stop 
his  coming  there  quite  so  much,  especially  when  people 
know  that  about  her  property." 

Cynthia's  property  was  hers  on  condition  that  her 
husband  took  her  name  if  she  married,  otherwise  it  was 
forfeited  to  her  sister's  child.  "  Catch  a  Risley  ever 
taking  his  wife's  name!"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd.  "Of  course 
Cynthia  would  be  willing  to  give  up  the  money  if  she 
loved  him,  but  I  don't  believe  she  does.  It  seems  as 
if  Lyman  Risley  ought  to  see  it  would  be  better  for  him 
not  to  go  there  so  much  if  they  weren't  going  to  be 
married." 

So  it  happened  when  Risley  caught  up  her  question 
to  Cynthia  in  that  peremptory  fashion,  Mrs.  Lloyd  felt 
in  addition  to  the  present  cause  some  which  had  gone 

77 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

before  for  her  grievance.  She  addressed  herself  there 
after  entirely  and  pointedly  to  Cynthia.  "Did  you 
ever  see  that  little  girl,  Cynthia?"  said  she. 

"Yes,"  replied  Cynthia,  in  a  voice  so  strange  that 
the  other  woman  stared  wonderingly  at  her. 

"Ain't  you  feeling  well,  Cynthia?"  she  asked. 

"Very  well,  thank  you,"  said  Cynthia. 

"  When  did  you  see  her?"  asked  Mrs.  Lloyd.  Cynthia 
opened  her  mouth  as  if  to  speak,  then  she  glanced  at 
Risley,  whose  eyes  held  her,  and  laughed  instead — a 
strange,  nervous  laugh.  Happily,  Mrs.  Lloyd  did  not 
wait  for  her  answer.  She  had  her  own  important  in 
formation  to  impart.  She  had  in  reality  stopped  for 
that  purpose.  "Well,  I  have  seen  her,"  she  said. 
"I  met  her  in  front  of  Crosby's  one  day  last  summer. 
And  she  was  so  sweet-looking  I  stopped  and  spoke 
to  her — I  couldn't  help  it.  She  had  beautiful  eyes, 
and  the  softest  light  curls,  and  she  was  dressed  so 
pretty,  and  the  flowers  on  her  hat  were  nice.  The 
embroidery  on  her  dress  was  very  line,  too.  Usually, 
you  know,  those  people  don't  care  about  the  fineness, 
as  long  as  it  is  wide,  and  showy,  and  bright-colored. 
I  asked  her  what  her  name  was,  and  she  answered 
just  as  pretty,  and  her  mother  told  me  how  old  she  was. 
Her  mother  was  a  handsome  woman,  though  she  had 
an  up-and-coming  kind  of  way  with  her.  But  she  seem 
ed  real  pleased  to  have  me  notice  the  child.  Where  do 
you  suppose  she  was  all  that  time,  Cynthia?" 

"She  was  in  some  safe  place,  undoubtedly,"  .said 
Risley,  and  again  Mrs.  Lloyd  felt  that  she  was  snubbed, 
though  not  seeing  how  nor  why,  and  again  she  rebelled 
with  that  soft  and  gentle  persistency  in  her  own  course 
which  was  the  only  rebellion  of  which  she  was  capable. 

"  Where  do  you  suppose  she  was,  Cynthia?"  said  she. 

"  I  think  some  woman  must  have  seen  her,  and  coaxed 
her  in  and  kept  her,  she  was  such  a  pretty  child,"  said 

78 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Cynthia,  defiantly  and  desperately.  But  the  other 
woman  looked  at  her  in  wonder. 

"Oh,  Cynthia,  I  can't  believe  that,"  said  she.  "It 
don't  seem  as  if  any  woman  could  be  so  bad  as  that 
when  the  child's  mother  was  in  such  agony  over  her." 
And  then  she  added,  "  I  can't  believe  it,  because  it  seems 
to  me  that  if  any  woman  was  bad  enough  to  do  that, 
she  couldn't  have  given  her  up  at  all,  she  was  such  a 
beautiful  child."  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  had  no  children 
of  her  own,  and  was  given  to  gazing  with  eyes  of  gentle 
envy  at  pretty,  rosy  little  girls,  frilled  with  white  em 
broidery  like  white  pinks,  dancing  along  in  leading 
hands  of  maternal  love.  "  It  don't  seem  to  me  I  could 
ever  have  given  her  up,  if  I  had  once  been  bad  enough 
to  steal  her,"  she  said.  "What  put  such  an  idea  into 
your  head,  Cynthia?" 

When  the  church-bell  clanged  out  just  then  Lymaii 
Risley  had  never  been  so  thankful  in  his  life.  Mrs. 
Lloyd  rose  promptly,  for  she  had  to  lead  the  meeting, 
that  being  the  custom  among  the  sisters  in  her  church. 
"  Well,"  said  she,  "  I  am  thankful  she  is  found,  any\vay ; 
I  couldn't  have  slept  a  wink  that  night  if  I  had  known 
she  was  lost,  the  dear  little  thing.  Good -night,  Cyn 
thia  ;  don't  come  to  the  door.  Good-night,  Mr.  Risle}^ 
Come  and  see  me,  Cynthia — do,  dear." 

When  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  was  gone,  Risley  looked 
at  Cynthia  with  a  long  breath  of  relief,  but  she  turned 
to  him  with  seemingly  no  appreciation  of  it,  and  repeated 
her  declaration  which  Mrs.  Lloyd's  coming  had  in 
terrupted:  "Lyman,  I  am  going  there  to-night — this 
minute.  Will  you  go  with  me?  No,  you  must  not  go 
with  me.  I  am  going!"  She  sprang  to  her  feet. 

"Sit  down,  Cynthia,"  said  Risley.  "I  tell  you  they 
were  not  harsh  to  her.  You  don't  seem  to  consider 
that  they  love  the  child — possibly  better  than  you 
can — and  would  not  in  the  nature  of  things  be  harsh  to 

79 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  under  such  circumstances.  Sit  down  and  hear  the 
rest  of  it." 

"But  they  will  be  harsh  by-and-by,  after  the  first 
joy  of  finding  her  is  over,"  said  Cynthia.  "I  will  go 
and  tell  them  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  Lyman." 

"  You  will  do  nothing  so  foolish.  They  are  not  only 
not  insisting  upon  her  telling  her  secret,  but  announced 
to  me  their  determination  not  to  do  so  in  the  future. 
I  wish  you  could  have  seen  that  man's  face  when  he 
told  me  what  a  delicate,  nervous  little  thing  his  child 
was,  and  the  doctor  said  she  must  not  be  fretted  if  she 
had  taken  a  notion  not  to  tell;  and  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  the  mother  and  the  aunt,  and  the  grand 
mother,  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster.  They  would  all  give 
each  other  and  themselves  up  to  be  torn  of  wild  beasts 
first.  It  is  easy  to  see  where  the  child  got  her  ex 
traordinary  strength  of  will.  They  took  me  out  in  the 
sitting-room,  and  there  was  a  wild  flurry  of  feminine 
skirts  before  me.  I  had  previously  overheard  myself 
announced  as  Lawyer  Risley  by  the  aunt,  and  the 
response  from  various  voices  that  they  were  'goin' 
if  he  was  comin'  out  in  the  sittin'-room.'  It  always 
made  them  nervous  to  see  lawyers.  Well,  I  followed 
the  parents  and  the  grandmother  and  the  aunt  out. 
I  dared  not  refuse  when  they  suggested  it,  and  I  hoped 
desperately  that  the  child  would  not  remember  me  from 
that  one  scared  glance  she  gave  at  me  this  morning. 
But  there  she  sat  in  her  little  chair,  holding  the  doll 
you  gave  her,  and  she  looked  up  at  me  when  I  entered, 
and  I  have  never  in  the  whole  course  of  my  existence 
seen  such  an  expression  upon  the  face  of  a  child.  Re 
member  me?  Indeed  she  did,  and  she  promised  me  with 
the  faithfulest,  stanchest  eyes  of  a  woman  set  in  a 
child's  head  that  she  would  not  tell ;  that  I  need  not  fear 
for  one  minute ;  that  the  lady  who  had  given  her  the 
doll  was  quite  safe.  She  knew,  and  she  must  have 

80 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

heard  what  I  said  to  you  this  morning.  She  is  the  most 
wonderful  child  I  have  ever  seen." 

Cynthia  had  sank  back  in  her  chair.  Lyman  Risley 
put  his  cigar  back  between  his  lips ;  Cynthia  was  quite 
still,  her  delicate  profile  towards  him. 

"I  assure  you  there  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of 
their  troubling  the  child  because  of  her  silence,  and 
you  would  do  an  exceedingly  foolish  thing,  and  its  con 
sequences  would  react  not  upon  yourself  only,  but — 
upon  others,  were  you  to  confess  the  truth  to  them," 
he  said  after  a  little.  "You  must  think  of  others — of 
your  friends,  and  of  your  sister's  boy,  whose  loss  led 
you  into  this.  This  would — well,  it  wrould  get  into  the 
papers,  Cynthia." 

"Do  you  think  that  the  doll  continued  to  please  her?" 
asked  Cynthia. 

"Cynthia,  I  want  you  to  promise,"  said  her  friend, 
persistently. 

"  Very  well,  I  will  promise,  if  you  will  promise  to  let 
me  know  the  minute  you  hear  that  they  are  treating  her 
harshly  because  of  her  silence." 

Suddenly  Cynthia  turned  her  face  upon  him.  "  Ly 
man,"  said  she,  "  do  you  think  that  I  could  do  anything 
for  her — 

"  Do  anything  for  her?"  he  repeated,  vaguely. 

"Yes;  they  cannot  have  money.  They  must  be 
poor:  the  father  works  in  the  factory.  Would  they 
allow  me — 

The  lawyer  laughed.  "Cynthia,"  he  said,  "you 
do  not  realize  that  pride  finds  its  native  element  in  all 
strata  of  society,  and  riches  are  comparative.  Let 
me  inform  you  that  these  Brewsters,  of  whom  this  child 
sprung,  claim  as  high  places  in  the  synagogue  as  any 
of  your  Lennoxes  and  Risleys,  and,  what  is  more,  they 
believe  themselves  there.  They  have  seen  the  tops  of 
their  neighbors'  heads  as  often  as  you  or  I.  The  mere 

81 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

fact  of  familiarity  with  shoe-knives  and  leather,  and 
hand -skill  instead  of  brain -skill,  makes  no  difference 
with  such  inherent  confidence  of  importance  as  theirs. 
The  Louds,  on  the  other  side — the  handsome  aunt  is 
a  Loud — are  rather  below  caste,  but  they  make  up  for 
it  with  defiance.  And  as  for  riches,  I  would  have  you 
know  that  the  Brewsters  are  as  rich  in  their  own  es 
timation  as  you  in  yours;  that  they  have  possessions 
which  entirely  meet  their  needs  and  their  aesthetic  long 
ings  ;  that  not  only  does  Andrew  Brewster  earn  exceed 
ingly  good  wages  in  the  shop,  and  is  able  to  provide 
plenty  of  nourishing  food  and  good  clothes,  but  even 
by-aiid-by,  if  he  prospers  and  is  prudent,  something 
rather  extra  in  the  way  of  education — perhaps  a  piano. 
I  would  have  you  know  that  there  is  a  Rogers  group 
on  a  little  marble-topped  table  in  the  front  window, 
and  a  table  in  the  side  window  with  a  worked  spread, 
on  which  reposes  a  red  plush  photograph  album;  that 
there  is  also  a  set  of  fine  parlor  furniture,  with  various 
devices  in  the  way  of  silken  and  lace  scarfs  over  the 
corners  and  backs  of  the  chairs  and  sofa,  and  that  there 
is  a  tapestry  carpet;  that  in  the  sitting-room  is  a  fine 
crushed  -  plush  couch,  and  a  multiplicity  of  rocking- 
chairs;  that  there  is  a  complete  dining-set  in  the  next 
room,  the  door  of  which  stood  open,  and  even  a  side 
board  with  red  napkins,  and  a  fine  display  of  glass, 
every  whit  as  elegant  in  their  estimation  as  your  cut 
glass  in  yours.  The  child's  father  owns  his  house  and 
land  free  of  encumbrance.  He  told  me  so  in  the  course 
of  his  artless  boasting  as  to  what  he  might  some  day 
be  able  to  do  for  the  precious  little  creature  of  his  own 
flesh  and  blood;  and  the  grandmother  owns  her  com 
fortable  place  next  door,  and  she  herself  was  dressed  in 
black  silk,  and  I  will  swear  the  lace  on  her  cap  was 
real,  and  she  wore  a  great  brooch  containing  hair  of 
the  departed,  and  it  was  set  in  pearl.  What  are 

82 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

you   going   to   do   in   the    face   of   opulence  like  this, 
Cynthia?" 

Cynthia  did  not  speak;  her  face  looked  as  still  as  if 
it  were  carved  in  ivory. 

"Cynthia/'  said  the  man,  in  a  harsh  voice,  "I  did 
not  dream  you  were  so  broken  up  over  losing  that  little 
boy  of  your  sister's,  poor  girl." 

Cynthia  still  said  nothing,  but  a  tear  rolled  down 
her  cheek.  Lyman  Risley  saw  it,  then  he  looked 
straight  ahead,  scowling  over  his  cigar.  lie  seemed 
suddenly  to  realize  in  this  woman  whom  he  loved  some 
thing  anomalous,  yet  lovely — a  beauty,  as  it  were,  of 
deformity,  an  over-development  in  one  direction,  though 
a  direction  of  utter  grace  and  sweetness,  like  the  lip  of 
an  orchid. 

Why  should  she  break  her  heart  over  a  child  whom 
she  had  never  seen  before,  and  have  no  love  and  pity  for 
the  man  who  had  laid  his  best  at  her  feet  so  long? 

He  saw  at  a  flash  the  sweet  yet  monstrous   imper 
feciion  of  her,  and  he  loved  her  better  for  it. 

83 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER  Ellen's  experience  in  running  away,  she 
dreamed  her  dreams  with  a  difference.  The  breath  of 
human  passion  had  stained  the  pure  crystal  of  her 
childish  imagination;  she  peopled  all  her  air-castles, 
and  sounds  of  wailing  farewells  floated  from  the  White 
North  of  her  fancy  after  the  procession  of  the  evergreen 
trees  in  the  west  yard,  and  the  cherry-trees  on  the  east 
had  found  out  that  they  were  not  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
In  those  days  Ellen  grew  taller  and  thinner,  and  the 
cherubic  roundness  of  her  face  lengthened  into  a  sweet 
wistfulness  of  wonder  and  pleading,  as  of  one  who 
would  look  farther,  since  she  heard  sounds  and  saw 
signs  in  her  sky  which  indicated  more  beyond.  An 
drew  and  Fanny  watched  her  more  anxiously  than 
ever,  and  decided  not  to  send  her  to  school  before  spring, 
though  all  the  neighbors  exclaimed  at  their  tardiness 
in  so  doing.  "  She'll  be  two  years  back  of  my  Hattie 
gettin'  into  the  high-school,"  said  one  woman,  bluntly, 
to  Fanny,  who  retorted,  angrily, 

"  I  don't  care  if  she's  ten  years  behind,  if  she  don't 
lose  her  health." 

"You  wait  and  see  if  she's  two  years  behind!"  ex 
claimed  Eva,  who  had  just  returned  from  the  shop, 
and  had  entered  the  room  bringing  a  fresh  breath 
of  December  air,  her  cheeks  glowing,  her  black  eyes 
shining. 

Eva  was  so  handsome  in  those  days  that  she  fairly 
forced  admiration,  even  from  those  of  her  own  sex  whose 
delicacy  of  taste  she  offended.  She  had  a  parcel  in 

84 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  hand,  which  she  had  bought  at  a  store  on  her  way 
home,  for  she  was  getting  ready  to  be  married  to  Jim 
Tenny.  "  I  tell  you  there  don't  nobody  know  what 
that  young  one  can  do,"  continued  Eva,  with  a  radiant 
nod  of  triumph.  "There  ain't  many  grown-up  folks 
round  here  that  can  read  like  her,  and  she's  studied 
geography,  and  she  knows  her  multiplication  -  table, 
and  she  can  spell  better  than  some  that's  been  through 
the  high-school.  You  jest  wait  till  Ellen  gets  started 
on  her  schoolin' — she  won't  stay  in  the  grammar-school 
long,  I  can  tell  you  that.  She'll  go  ahead  of  some  that's 
got  a  start  now  and  think  they're  'most  there."  Eva 
pulled  off  her  hat,  and  the  coarse  black  curls  on  her 
forehead  sprang  up  like  released  wire.  She  nodded 
emphatically  with  a  good-humored  combativeness  at 
the  visiting  woman  and  at  her  sister. 

"I  hope  your  cheeks  are  red  enough/'  said  Fanny, 
looking  at  her  with  grateful  admiration. 

The  visiting  woman  sniffed  covertly,  and  a  retort 
which  seemed  to  her  exceeding!}"  witty  was  loud  in  her 
own  consciousness.  "  Them  that  likes  beets  and  pinies 
is  welcome  to  them,"  she  thought,  but  she  did  not  speak. 
"Well,"  said  she,  "folks  must  do  as  they  think  best 
about  their  own  children.  I  have  always  thought  a 
good  deal  of  an  education  myself.  I  wras  brought  up 
that  way."  She  looked  with  eyes  that  were  fairly 
cruel  at  Eva  Loud  and  Fanny,  who  had  been  a  Loud, 
who  had  both  stopped  going  to  school  at  a  very  early 
age. 

Then  the  rich  red  flamed  over  Eva's  forehead  and 
neck  as  well  as  her  cheeks.  There  was  nothing  covert 
about  her,  she  would  drag  an  ambushed  enemy  forth 
into  the  open  field  even  at  the  risk  of  damaging  dis 
closures  regarding  herself. 

"  Why  don't  you  say  jest  what  you  mean,  right  out, 
Jennie  Stebbins?"  she  demanded.  "You  are  hintin' 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

that  Fanny  and  me  never  had  no  education,  and  twittin' 
us  with  it." 

"It  wa'n't  our  fault,"  said  Fanny,  no  less  angrily. 

"No,  it  wa'n't  our  fault,"  assented  Eva.  "We  had 
to  quit  school.  Folks  can  live  with  empty  heads,  but 
they  can't  with  empty  stomachs.  It  had  to  be  one  or 
the  other.  If  you  want  to  twit  us  with  bein'  poor,  you 
can,  Jennie  Stebbins." 

"I  haven't  said  anything,"  said  Mrs.  Stebbins,  with 
a  scared  and  injured  air.  "  I'd  like  to  know  what  you're 
making  all  this  fuss  about?  I  don't  know.  What  did 
I  say?" 

"If  I'd  said  anything  mean,  I  wouldn't  turn  tail  an' 
run,  I'd  stick  to  it  about  one  minute  and  a  half,  if  it 
killed  me,"  said  Eva,  scornfully. 

"You  know  what  you  was  hintin'  at,  jest  as  \vell 
as  we  do,"  said  Fanny ;  "  but  it  ain't  so  true  as  you  and 
some  other  folks  may  think,  I  can  tell  you  that.  If 
Eva  and  me  didn't  go  to  schoof  as  long  as  some,  we 
have  always  read  every  chance  we  could  get." 

"That's  so,"  said  Eva,  emphatically.  "I  guess 
we've  read  enough  sight  more  than  some  folks  that 
has  had  a  good  deal  more  chance  to  read.  Fanny  and 
me  have  taken  books  out  of  the  library  full  as  much  as 
any  of  the  neighbors,  I  rather  guess." 

"  We've  read  every  single  thing  that  Mrs.  Southworth 
has  ever  written,"  said  Fanny,  "and  that's  sayin' 
considerable." 

"And  all  Pansy's  and  Rider  Haggard's,"  declared 
Eva,  with  triumph. 

"  And  every  one  of  The  Duchess  and  Marie  Corelli, 
and  Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  George  Macdonald,  and 
Laura  Jean  Libbey,  and  Charles  Reade,  and  more, 
besides,  than  I  can  think  of." 

"Fanny  has  read  'most  all  Tennyson,"  said  Eva, 
with  loyal  admiration;  "she  likes  poetry,  but  I  don't 

86 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

very  well.  She  has  read  most  all  Tennyson  and  Long 
fellow,  and  we've  both  read  Oueechee,  and  St.  Elmo, 
and  Jane  Eyre." 

"And  we've  read  the  Bible  through,"  said  Fanny, 
"  because  we  read  in  a  paper  once  that  that  was  a  com 
plete  education.  We  made  up  our  minds  we'd  read  it 
through,  and  we  did,  though  it  took  us  quite  a  while." 

"  And  we  take  Zion's  Herald,  and  The  Rowe  Gazette, 
and  The  Youth's  Companion,"  said  Eva. 

"  And  w^e've  both  of  us  learned  Ellen  geography  and 
spellin'  and  'rithmetic,  till  we  know  most  as  much  as 
she  does,"  said  Fanny. 

"That's  so,"  said  Fanny.  "I  snum,  I  believe  I 
could  get  into  the  high-school  myself,  if  I  wasn't  goin' 
to  git  married,"  said  Eva,  with  a  gay  laugh.  She  was 
so  happy  in  those  days  that  her  power  of  continued 
resentment  was  small.  The  tide  of  her  own  bliss  re 
turned  upon  her  full  consciousness  and  overflowed,  and 
crested,  as  with  glory,  all  petty  annoyances. 

The  visiting  woman  took  up  her  work,  and  rose  to 
go  with  a  slightty  abashed  air,  though  heir  small  brown 
eyes  were  still  blanks  of  impregnable  defence.  "  Well, 
I  dunno  what  I've  said  to  stir  you  both  so,"  she  re 
marked  again.  "  If  I've  said  anythin'  that  riled  you, 
I'm  sorry,  I'm  sure.  As  I  said  before,  folks  must  do 
as  they  are  a  mind  to  with  their  o\vn  children.  If  they 
see  fit  to  keep  'em  home  from  school  until  they're  women 
grown,  and  if  they  think  it's  best  not  to  punish  'em 
when  they  run  away,  why  they  must.  I  'ain't  got  no 
right  to  say  anythin',  and  I  'ain't." 

"You — "  began  Fanny,  and  then  she  stopped  short, 
and  Eva  began  arranging  her  hair  before  the  glass. 
"The  wind  blew  so  comin'  home,"  she  said,  "that  my 
hair  is  all  out."  The  visiting  woman  stared  with  a 
motion  of  adjustive  bewilderment,  as  one  might  before  a 
sudden  change  of  wand,  then  she  looked,  as  a  shadowy 

87 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

motion  disturbed  the  even  light  of  the  room  and  little 
Ellen  passed  the  window.  She  knew  at  once,  for  she 
had  heard  the  gossip,  that  the  ready  tongues  of 
recrimination  were  hushed  because  of  the  child,  and 
then  Ellen  entered. 

The  winter  afternoon  was  waning  and  the  light  was 
low ;  the  child's  face,  with  its  clear  fairness,  seemed  to 
gleam  out  in  the  room  like  a  lamp  with  a  pale  lumi 
nosity  of  its  own. 

The  three  women,  the  mother,  and  aunt,  and  the 
visiting  neighbor,  all  looked  at  her,  and  Ellen  smiled 
up  at  them  as  innocently  sweet  as  a  flower.  There  was 
that  in  Ellen's  smile  and  regard  at  that  time  which 
no  woman  could  resist.  Suddenly  the  visiting  neighbor 
laid  a  finger  softly  under  her  chin  and  tilted  up  her 
little  face  towards  the  light.  Then  she  said  with  that 
unconscious  poetry  of  bereavement  which  sees  a  like 
ness  in  all  fair  things  of  earth  to  the  face  of  the  lost 
treasure,  "  I  do  believe  she  looks  like  my  first  little  girl 
that  died." 

After  the  visiting  woman  had  gone,  Fanny  and 
Eva  calling  after  her  to  come  again,  they  looked  at 
each  other,  then  at  Ellen.  "That  little  girl  that  died 
favored  the  Stebbinses,  and  was  dark  as  an  Injun," 
said  Fanny,  "  no  more  like  Ellen — 

"  That's  so,"  acquiesced  Eva ;  "  I  remember  that  young 
one.  Lookin'  like  Ellen — I'd  like  to  see  the  child  that 
did  look  like  her;  there  ain't  none  round  these  parts. 
I  wish  you  could  have  seen  folks  stare  at  her  when  I 
took  her  down  street  yesterday.  One  woman  said, 
'Ain't  she  pretty  as  a  picture,'  so  loud  I  heard  it,  but 
Ellen  didn't  seem  to. " 

"Sometimes  I  wonder  if  we'll  make  her  proud,"  Fan 
ny  said,  in  a  hushed  voice,  with  a  look  of  admiration 
that  savored  of  worship  at  Ellen. 

"She  don't  ever  seem  to  notice,"  said  Eva,  with  a 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

hushed  response.  Indeed,  Ellen  had  seemed  to  pay  no 
attention  whatever  to  their  remarks,  whether  from 
an  innate  humility  and  lack  of  self -consciousness,  or 
because  she  was  so  accustomed  to  adulation  that  it  had 
become  as  the  breath  of  her  nostrils,  to  be  taken  no 
more  account  of.  She  had  seated  herself  in  her  favorite 
place  in  a  rocking-chair  at  a  west  window,  with  her 
chin  resting  on  the  sill,  and  her  eyes  staring  into  the 
great  out-of-doors,  full  of  winds  and  skies  and  trees 
and  her  own  imaginings. 

She  would  sit  so,  motionless,  for  hours  at  a  time,  and 
sometimes  her  mother  would  rouse  her  almost  roughly. 
"What  be  you  thiiikin'  about,  settin'  there  so  still?" 
she  would  ask,  with  eyes  of  vague  anxiety  fixed  upon 
her,  but  Ellen  could  never  answer. 

Though  it  was  getting  late,  it  did  not  seem  dark  as 
early  as  usual,  since  there  was  a  full  moon  and  there 
was  snow  on  the  ground  which  gave  forth  a  pale  light 
in  a  wide  surface  of  reflection.  However,  the  moon 
was  behind  clouds,  for  it  was  beginning  to  snow  again 
quite  heavily,  and  the  white  flakes  drove  in  wrhirlwinds 
past  the  street-lamp  on  the  corner  of  the  street.  Now 
and  then  a  tramping  and  muffled  figure  came  into  the 
radius  of  light,  then  passed  into  the  white  gloom  beyond. 

Fanny  was  preparing  supper,  and  the  light  from  the 
dining-room  shone  in  where  Ellen  sat,  but  the  sitting- 
room  was  not  lighted.  Ellen  began  to  smell  the  fra 
grance  of  tea  and  toast,  and  there  was  a  reflection  of 
the  dining-room  table  and  lamp  outside  pictured  vividly 
against  the  white  sheet  of  storm. 

Ellen  knew  better,  but  it  amused  her  to  think  that  her 
home  was  out-of-doors  as  well  as  under  her  father's 
and  mother's  roof.  Eva  passed  her  with  her  hands  full 
of  kindlings.  She  was  going  to  make  a  fire  in  the 
parlor-stove,  for  Jim  Tenny  was  coming  that  evening. 
She  laid  a  tender  hand  on  Ellen's  head  as  she  passed, 

89 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  smoothed  her  hair.  Ellen  had  a  sort  of  acquiescent 
wonder  over  her  aunt  Eva  in  those  days.  She  heard 
people  say  Eva  was  getting  ready  to  be  married,  and 
speculated.  "What  is  getting  ready  to  be  married?'' 
she  asked  Eva. 

"Why,  getting  your  clothes  made,  you  little  ninny," 
Eva  answered. 

The  next  day  Ellen  had  watched  her  mother  at  work 
upon  a  new  little  frock  for  herself  for  some  time  before 
she  spoke. 

"Mother,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  child." 

"Mother,  you  are  making  that  new  dress  for  me, 
ain't  you?" 

" Of  course  I  am;  why?" 

"  And  you  made  me  a  new  coat  last  week?" 

"Why,  you  know  I  did,  Ellen;  what  do  you  mean?'' 

"  And  you  are  going  to  make  me  a  petticoat  and  put 
that  pretty  lace  on  it?" 

"  You  know  I  am,  Ellen  Brewster,  what  be  you  drivin' 
at?" 

"Be  I  a-gettin'  ready  to  be  married,  mother?"  asked 
Ellen,  with  the  strangest  look  of  wonder  and  awe  and 
anticipation. 

Fanny  had  told  this  saying  of  the  child's  to  every 
body,  and  that  evening  when  Jim  Tenny  came  he 
caught  up  Ellen  and  gave  her  a  toss  to  the  ceiling,  a 
trick  of  his  which  filled  Ellen  with  a  sort  of  fearful 
delight,  the  delight  of  helplessness  in  the  hands  of 
strength,  arid  the  titillation  of  evanescent  risk. 

"So  you  are  gettin'  ready  to  be  married,  are  you?" 
Jim  Tenny  said,  with  a  great  laugh,  looking  at  her 
soberly,  with  big  black  eyes.  Jim  Tenny  was  a  hand 
some  fellow,  and  much  larger  and  stronger  than  her 
father.  Ellen  liked  him;  he  often  brought  candies  in 
his  pocket  for  her,  and  they  were  great  friends,  but  she 

90 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

could  never  understand  why  he  stayed  in  the  parlor 
all  alone  with  her  aunt  Eva,  instead  of  in  the  sitting- 
room  with  the  others. 

Ellen  had  looked  back  ai  him  as  soberly.  "  Mother 
says  I  'ain't,"  she  replied,  "  but— 

"  But  what?" 

"  I  am  getting  most  as  many  new  clothes  as  Aunt 
Eva,  and  she  is." 

"  And  you  think  maybe  you  are  gettin'  ready  to  be 
married,  after  all,  he}7?" 

"I  think  maybe  mother  wants  to  surprise  me,"  Ellen 
said. 

Jim  Tenny  had  all  of  a  sudden  shaken  convulsively 
as  if  with  mirth,  but  his  face  remained  perfectly  sober. 

That  evening  after  the  parlor  door  was  closed  upon 
Jim  and  Eva,  Ellen  wondered  what  they  were  laughing 
at. 

To-night  when  she  saw  Eva  enter  the  room,  a  lighted 
lamp  illuminating  her  face  fairly  reckless  with  hap 
piness,  to  light  the  fire  in  the  courting  -  stove  as  her 
sister  facetiously  called  it,  she  thought  to  herself  that 
Jim  Tenny  was  coming,  that  they  would  be  shut  up  in 
there  all  alone  as  usual,  and  then  she  looked  out  at  the 
storm  and  the  night  again,  and  the  little  home  picture 
thrown  against  it.  Then  she  saw  her  father  coming 
into  the  yard  with  his  arms  full  of  parcels,  and  she 
was  out  of  her  chair  and  at  the  kitchen  door  to  meet 
him. 

Andrew  had  brought  as  usual  some  dainties  for  his 
darling.  He  watched  Ellen  unwrap  the  various  parcels, 
not  smiling  as  usual,  but  with  a  curious  knitting  of  his 
forehead  and  pitiful  compression  of  mouth.  When  she 
had  finished  and  ran  into  the  other  room  to  show  a 
great  orange  to  her  aunt,  he  drew  a  heavy  sigh  that 
was  almost  a  groan.  His  wife  coming  in  from  the 
kitchen  with  a  dish  heard  him,  and  looked  at  him  with 

91 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

quick  anxiety,  though  .she  spoke  in  a  merry,  rallying 
way. 

"  For  the  land  sake,  Andrew  Brewster,  what  be  you 
groanin'  that  way  for?"  she  cried  out. 

Andrew's  tense  face  did  not  relax;  he  strove  to  push 
past  her  without  a  word,  but  Fanny  stood  before  him. 
"Now,  look  at  here,  Andrew,"  said  she,  "you  'ain't 
goin'  to  \valk  off  with  a  face  like  that,  unless  I  know 
what  the  matter  is.  Are  you  sick?" 

"No,  I  ain't  sick,  Fanny,"  Andrew  said;  then  in  a 
low  voice,  "Let  me  go,  I  wTill  tell  you  by-and-by." 

"No,  Andrew,  you  have  got  to  tell  me  now.  I'm 
goin'  to  know  whatever  has  happened." 

"Wait  till  after  supper,  Fanny." 

"  No,  I  can't  wait.  Look  here,  Andrew,  you  are  my 
husband,  and  there  ain't  no  trouble  that  can  come  to  you 
in  this  world  that  I  can't  bear,  except  not  knowin'. 
You've  got  to  tell  me  what  the  matter  is." 

"  Well,  keep  quiet  till  after  supper,  then,"  said  Andrew. 
Then  suddenly  he  leaned  his  face  close  to  her  and  whis 
pered  with  a  hiss  of  tragedy,  "  Lloyd's  shut  down." 

Fanny  recoiled  and  looked  at  him. 

"When?" 

"The  foreman  gave  notice  to-night." 

"For  how  long?     Did  he  say?" 

"  Oh,  till  business  got  better — same  old  story.  Un 
less  I'm  mistaken,  Lloyd's  will  be  shut  down  all  win 
ter." 

"  WTell,  it  ain't  so  bad  for  us  as  for  some,"  said  Fanny. 
Both  pride  and  a  wish  to  cheer  her  husband  induced 
her  to  say  that.  She  did  not  like  to  think  that,  after 
the  fine  marriage  she  had  made,  she  needed  to  be  as 
distressed  at  a  temporary  loss  of  employment  as  others. 
Then,  too,  that  look  of  overhanging  melancholy  in 
Andrew's  face  alarmed  her ;  she  felt  that  she  must  drive 
it  away  at  any  cost. 

92 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Seems  to  me  it's  bad  enough  for  anybody,"  said 
Andrew,  morosely. 

"Now,  Andrew,  you  know  it  ain't.  Here  we  own 
the  house  clear,  and  we've  got  that  money  in  the  sav 
ings-bank,  and  all  that's  your  mother's  is  yours  in  the 
end.  Of  course  we  ain't  always  thinkin'  of  that,  and 
I'm  sure  I  hope  she'll  outlive  me,  but  it's  so.  You 
know  we  sha'n't  starve  if  you  don't  have  work." 

"We  shall  .starve  in  the  end,  and  you  know  I've 
been — "  Andrew  stopped  suddenly  as  he  heard  Ellen 
and  his  sister-in-law  coming.  He  shook  his  head  at 
his  wife  with  a  warning  motion  that  she  should  keep 
silence. 

"  Don't  Eva  know?"  she  whispered. 

"  No,  she  came  out  early.  Do  for  Heaven's  sake  keep 
quiet  till  after  supper." 

Eva  was  sharp-eyed,  and  all  through  supper  she 
watched  Andrew,  and  the  lines  of  melancholy  on  his 
face,  which  did  not  disappear  even  when  he  forced  con 
versation. 

"What  in  creation  ails  you,  Andrew?"  she  burst  out, 
finally.  "  You  look  like  a  walking  funeral." 

Andrew  made  no  reply,  and  Fanny  volunteered  an 
answer.  "He's  all  tired  out,"  she  said;  "he's  got  a 
little  cold.  Eat  some  more  of  the  stew,  Andrew;  it'll 
do  you  good,  it's  nice  and  hot." 

"You  can't  cheat  me,"  said  Eva.  "There's  some 
thing  to  pay."  She  took  a  mouthful,  then  she  stared 
at  Andrew,  with  a  sudden  pallor.  "It  ain't  anythin' 
about  Jim,  is  it?"  she  gasped  out.  "Because  if  it  is, 
there's  no  use  in  your  waitin'  to  tell  me,  you  might  as 
well  have  it  over  at  once.  You  won't  make  it  any 
easier  for  me,  I  can  tell  you  that." 

"No,  it  ain't  anything  about  Jim,  in  the  way  you 
mean,  Eva,"  her  sister  said,  soothingly.  "Eat  your 
supper  and  don't  worry." 

93 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that?     Jim  ain't  sick?" 

"No,  I  tell  you;  don't  be  a  goose,  Eva." 

"He  ain't  been  anywhere  with— 

"Do  keep  still,  Eva!"  Fanny  cried,  impatiently. 
"If  I  didn't  have  any  more  faith  than  that  in  a  man, 
I'd  give  him  up.  I  don't  think  you're  fair  to  Jim.  Of 
course  he  ain't  been  with  that  girl,  when  he's  goin' 
to  marry  you  next  month." 

"I'm  just  as  fair  to  Jim  as  he  deserves,"  Eva  said, 
simply.  "  I  think  just  as  much  of  him,  but  what  a  man's 
done  once  he  may  do  again,  and  I  can't  help  it  if  I  think 
of  it,  and  he  shouldn't  be  surprised.  He's  brought  it  on 
himself.  I've  got  as  much  faith  in  him  as  anybody 
can  have,  seein'  as  he's  a  man.  Well,  if  it  ain't  that, 
Andrew  Brewster,  what  is  it?" 

"Now,  you  let  him  alone  till  after  supper,  Eva," 
Fanny  said.  "  Do  let  him  have  a  little  peace." 

"  Well,  I'll  get  it  out  of  him  afterwards,"  Eva  said. 

As  soon  as  she  got  up  from  the  table  she  pushed  him 
into  the  sitting-room.  "Now,  out  with  it,"  said  she. 
Ellen,  who  had  followed  them,  stood  looking  at  them 
both,  her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  full  of  half  -  alarmed 
curiosity. 

"Lloyd's  has  shut  down,  if  you  want  to  know/' 
Andrew  said,  shortly. 

"Oh  my  God!"  cried  Eva.  Andrew  shrank  from 
her  impatiently.  She  made  that  ejaculation  because 
she  \vas  a  Loud,  and  had  an  off -streak  in  her  blood. 
Not  one  of  Andrew's  pure  New  England  stock  would 
have  so  expressed  herself.  He  sat  down  beside  the  lamp 
and  took  up  the  evening  paper.  Eva  stood  looking  at 
him  a  minute.  She  was  quite  pale,  she  was  weighing 
consequences.  Then  she  went  out  to  her  sister.  "  Well, 
you  know  what's  happened,  Fan,  I  s'pose,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  I'm  awful  sorry,  but  I  tell  Andrew  it  ain't  so 
bad  for  us  as  for  some;  we  sha'n't  starve." 

94 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  I  don't  know  as  I  care  much  whether  I  starve  or 
not,"  said  Eva.  "It's  goin'  to  make  me  put  off  my 
weddin' ;  and  if  I  do  put  it  off,  Jim  and  me  will  never  get 
married  at  all;  I  feel  it  in  my  bones." 

"  Why,  what  should  you  have  to  put  it  off  for?"  asked 
Fanny. 

"  Why?  I  should  think  you'd  know  why  without  ask- 
in'.  Ain't  I  spent  every  dollar  I  have  saved  up  on  my 
weddin'  fixin's,  and  Jim,  he's  got  his  mother  on  his 
hands,  and  she's  been  sick,  and  he  ain't  saved  up  any 
thing.  If  you  s'pose  I'm  goin'  to  marry  him  and  make 
him  any  worse  off  than  he  is  now  you're  mistaken." 

"Well,  mebbe  Jim  can  work  somewhere  else,  and 
mebbe  Lloyd's  won't  be  shut  up  long,"  Fanny  said, 
consolingly.  "I  wouldn't  give  up  so,  if  I  was  you." 

"I  might  jest  as  well,"  Eva  returned.  "It's  no  use, 
Jim  and  me  will  never  get  married."  Eva's  face  was 
curiously  set ;  she  was  not  in  the  least  loud  nor  violent 
as  was  usually  the  case  when  she  was  in  trouble,  her 
voice  was  quite  low,  and  she  spoke  slowly. 

Fanny  looked  anxious^  at  her.  "  It  ain't  as  though 
you  hadn't  a  roof  to  cover  you,"  she  said,  "for  you've 
got  mine  and  Andrew's  as  long  as  we  have  one  our 
selves." 

"Do  you  think  I'd  live  on  Andrew  long?"  demanded 
Eva. 

"You  won't  have  to.  Jim  will  get  work  in  a  week 
or  two,  and  you'll  get  married.  Don't  act  so.  I  declare, 
I'm  ashamed  of  you,  Eva  Loud.  I  thought  you  had 
more  sense,  to  give  up  discouraged  at  no  more  than  this. 
I  don't  see  why  you  jump  way  ahead  into  trouble  before 
you  get  to  it." 

"I've  got  to  it,  and  I  can  feel  the  steam  of  it  in  my 
face,"  Eva  said,  with  unconscious  imagery.  Then  she 
lit  a  lamp,  and  went  up-stairs  to  change  her  dress  before 
Jim  Tenny  arrived. 

95 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

It  was  snowing  hard.  Ellen  sat  in  her  place  by  the 
window  and  watched  the  flakes  drive  past  the  radiance 
of  the  street-lamp  on  the  corner,  and  past  the  reflection 
of  the  warm,  bright  room.  Now  she  could  see,  since 
the  light  was  in  the  room  where  she  sat,  her  father 
beside  the  table  reading  his  paper,  and  shadowy  images 
of  all  the  familiar  things  projecting  themselves  like  a 
mirage  of  home  into  the  night  and  storm.  Ellen  could 
see,  even  without  turning  round,  that  her  father  looked 
very  sober,  and  did  not  seem  to  be  much  interested  in 
his  paper,  and  a  vague  sense  of  calamity  oppressed  her. 
She  did  not  know  just  what  might  be  involved  in  Lloyd's 
shutting  down,  but  she  saw  that  her  father  and  aunt 
were  disturbed,  and  her  imaginings  were  half  eclipsed 
by  a  shadow  of  material  things.  Ellen  dearly  loved 
this  early  evening  hour  when  she  could  stare  out  into 
the  mysterjr  of  the  night,  herself  sheltered  under  the 
wing  of  home,  and  the  fancies  which  her  childish  brain 
wove  wrere  as  a  garment  of  spirit  for  the  future ;  but  to 
night  she  did  not  dream  so  much  as  she  \vondered  and 
reflected.  Pretty  soon  Ellen  saw  a  man's  figure  plodding 
through  the  fast-gathering  snow,  and  heard  her  aunt 
Eva  make  a  soft,  heavy  rush  down  the  front  stairs, 
and  she  knew  the  man  was  Jim  Tenny,  and  her  aunt 
had  been  watching  for  him.  Ellen  wondered  why  she 
had  watched  up  in  her  cold  room,  why  she  had  not  sat 
down-stairs  where  it  was  warm,  and  let  Jim  ring  the 
door-bell.  Ellen  liked  Jim  Tenny,  but  there  was  often 
that  in  her  aunt's  eyes  regarding  him  which  made 
Ellen  look  past  him  and  above  him  to  see  if  there 
was  another  man  there.  Ellen  heard  the  fire  crack 
ling  in  the  parlor  -  stove,  and  saw  the  light  shining 
under  the  parlor  threshold,  and  heard  the  soft  hum  of 
voices.  Her  mother,  having  finished  washing  up  the 
supper  dishes,  came  in  presently  and  seated  herself 
beside  the  lamp  with  her  needle-work. 

96 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  don't  feel  any  wind  comin'  in  the  window?" 
she  said,  anxiously,  to  Ellen. 

"  No,  ma'am,"  replied  Ellen. 

Andrew  looked  up  quickly.  "  You're  sure  you  don't?" 
he  said. 

"  Xo,  sir." 

Ellen  watched  her  mother  sewing  out  in  the  snowy 
yard,  then  a  dark  shadow  came  between  the  reflection 
and  the  window,  then  another.  Two  men  treading  in 
the  snow  in  even  file,  one  in  the  other's  foot-tracks,  came 
into  the  3*ard. 

"Somebodj^'s  comin',"  said  Ellen,  as  a  knock,  came 
on  the  side  door. 

"  Did  you  see  who  'twas?"  Fanny  asked,  starting  up. 

"Two  men." 

"It's  somebody  to  see  you,  Andrew,"  Fanny  said, 
and  Andrew  tossed  his  paper  on  the  table  and  went 
to  the  door. 

When  the  door  was  opened  Ellen  heard  a  man  cough. 

"  I  should  think  anybody  was  crazy  to  come  out  such 
a  night  as  this,  coughin'  that  way,"  murmured  Fanny. 
"I  do  believe  it's  Joe  Atkins;  sounds  like  his  cough." 
Then  Andrew  entered  with  the  two  men  stamping  and 
shaking  themselves. 

"Here's  Joseph  Atkins  and  Nahum  Deals,"  Andrew 
said,  in  his  melancholy  voice,  all  unstirred  by  the  usual 
warmth  of  greeting.  The  two  men  bowed  stiffly. 

"Good-evenin',"  Fanny  said,  and  rose  and  pushed 
forward  the  rocking-chair  in  which  she  had  been  seated 
to  Joseph  Atkins,  who  was  a  consumptive  man  with 
an  invalid  wife,  and  worked  next  Andrew  in  Lloyd's. 

"Keep  your  settin',  keep  your  settin',"  he  returned 
in  his  quick,  nervous  way,  as  if  his  very  words  were 
money  for  dire  need,  and  sat  himself  down  in  a  straight 
chair  far  from  the  fire.  The  other  man,  Nahum  Beals, 
was  very  young.  He  seated  himself  next  to  Joseph, 
G  97 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

and  the  two  side  by  side  looked  with  gloomy  signifi 
cance  at  Andrew  and  Fanny.  Then  Joseph  Atkins 
burst  out  suddenly  in  a  rattling  volley  of  coughs. 

"  You  hadn't  ought  to  come  out  such  a  night  as  this, 
I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Atkins,"  said  Fanny. 

"  He's  been  out  jest  as  bad  weather  as  this  all  winter/' 
said  the  young  man,  Nahum  Beals,  in  an  unexpectedly 
deep  voice.  "The  workers  of  this  world  can't  afford 
to  take  no  account  of  weather.  It's  for  the  rich  folks 
to  look  out  betwixt  their  lace  curtains  and  see  if  it  looks 
lowery,  so  they  sha'ii't  git  their  gold  harnesses  and  their 
shin}^  carriages,  an'  their  silks  an'  velvets  an'  ostrich 
feathers  wet.  The  poor  folks  that  it's  life  and  death  to 
have  to  go  out  whether  or  no,  no  matter  if  they've  got 
an  extra  suit  of  clothes  or  not.  They've  got  to  go  out 
through  the  drenchin'  rain  and  the  snow  -  drifts,  to 
earn  money  so  that  the  rich  folks  can  have  them  gold- 
plated  harnesses  and  them  silks  and  velvets.  Joe's 
been  out  all  winter  in  weather  as  bad  as  this,  after  he's 
been  standin'  all  day  in  a  shop  as  hot  as  hell,  drenched 
with  sweat.  One  more  time  won't  make  much  dif 
ference." 

"It  would  be  'nough  sight  better  for  me  if  it  did," 
said  Joseph  Atkins,  chokingly,  and  still  with  that  same 
seeming  of  hurry. 

Fanny  had  gone  out  to  the  dining-room,  and  now  she 
returned  stirring  some  whiskey  and  molasses  in  a  cup. 

"Here,"  said  she,  "you  take  this,  Mr.  Atkins;  it's 
real  good  for  a  cough.  Andrew  cured  a  cold  with  it 
last  month." 

"  Mine  ain't  a  cold,  and  it  can't  be  cured  in  this  world, 
but  it's  better  for  me,  I  guess/'  said  Joe  Atkins,  chok 
ingly,  but  he  took  the  cup. 

"Now,  you  hadn't  ought  to  talk  so,"  Fanny  said. 
"  You  had  ought  to  think  of  your  wife  and  children." 

"My  life  is  insured,"  said  Joseph  Atkins. 

98 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  We  ain't  got  no  money  and  no  jewelry,  and  no  silver 
to  leave  them  we  love — all  we've  got  to  leave  'em  is 
the  price  of  our  own  lives,"  said  Nahum  Deals. 

"  I  wish  I  had  got  my  life  insured/'  Andrew  said. 

"  Don't  talk  so,  Andrew,"  Fanny  cried,  with  a  shudder. 

"My  life  is  insured  for  two  thousand  dollars,"  Joe 
Atkins  said,  with  an  odd  sort  of  pride.  "  I  had  it  done 
three  years  ago.  My  lungs  was  sound  as  anybody's 
then,  but  that  very  next  summer  I  worked  up  under  that 
tin  roof,  and  came  out  as  wet  as  if  I'd  been  dipped  in 
the  river,  into  an  east  wind,  and  got  a  chill.  It  was  the 
only  time  I  ever  struck  luck — to  get  insured  before  that 
happened.  Nobody 'd  look  at  me  now,  and  I  dunno 
what  they'd  do.  I  'ain't  laid  up  a  cent,  I've  had  so 
much  sickness  in  my  family." 

"If  you  hadn't  worked  that  summer  in  the  annex 
under  that  tin  roof,  you'd  be  as  well  as  you  ever  was 
now,"  said  Nahum  Beals. 

"I  worked  there  'longside  of  you  that  summer," 
said  Andrew  to  Joe,  with  bitter  reminiscence.  "We 
used  to  strip  like  a  gang  of  convicts,  and  we  stood  in 
pools  of  sweat.  It  was  that  awful  hot  summer,  and  the 
room  had  only  that  one  row  of  windows  facing  the  east, 
and  the  wind  never  that  way." 

"Not  till  I  came  out  of  the  shop  that  night  I  took 
the  chill,"  said  Joe. 

Suddenly  the  young  man,  Nahum  Beals,  hit  his 
knees  a  sounding  slap,  which  made  Ellen,  furtively 
and  timidly  attentive  at  her  window,  jump.  "  It  seems 
sometimes  as  if  the  Almighty  himself  was  in  league 
with  'em,"  he  shouted  out,  "  but  I  tell  you  it  won't  last, 
it  won't  last." 

"  I  don't  see  much  sign  of  any  change  for  the  better, ' ' 
Andrew  said,  gloomily. 

"  I  tell  you,  sir,  it  won't  last,"  repeated  Nahum  Beals. 
"I  tell  you,  the  Lord  only  raises  'em  up  higher  and 

99 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

higher  that  He  may  dash  'em  lower  when  the  time 
comes.  The  same  earth  is  beneath  the  high  places 
of  this  life,  and  the  lowly  ones,  and  the  law  that  governs 
'em  is  the  same,  and — the  higher  the  place  the  longer 
the  fall,  and  the  longer  the  fall  the  sorer  the  hurt." 
Nahum  Beals  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  strange  abandon 
of  self-consciousness  and  a  fiery  impetus  for  one  of  hi,s 
New  England  blood.  He  had  n  delicate,  nervous  face, 
like  a  woman's,  his  blue  eyes  gleamed  like  blue  flames 
under  his  overhang  of  white  forehead,  he  shook  his 
head  as  if  it  were  maned  like  a  lion,  and,  though  he  wore 
his  thin,  fair  hair  short,  one  could  seem  to  see  it  flung 
back  in  glistening  lines.  He  spread  his  hands  as  if 
he  were  addressing  an  audience,  and  as  he  did  so  the 
parlor  door  opened  and  Jim  Tenny  and  Eva  stood 
there,  listening. 

"I  tell  you,  sir,"  shouted  Nahum  Beals,  "the  time 
will  come  when  you  will  all  thank  God  that  you  belong 
to  the  poor  and  down-trodden  of  this  earth,  and  not  to 
the  rich  and  great — the  time  will  come.  There's  knives 
to  sharpen  to-day,  and  wood  for  scaffolds  as  plenty  as 
in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  hand  that 
marks  the  time  of  day  on  the  clock  of  men's  patience 
with  wrong  and  oppression  has  near  gone  round  to  the 
same  hour  and  minute." 

Andrew  Brewster  looked  at  him,  with  a  curious  ex 
pression  half  of  disgust,  half  of  sympathy.  His  sense 
of  dignity  in  the  face  of  adversity  inherited  from  his 
New  England  race  was  shocked;  he  was  not  one  to  be 
blindly  s\vayed  by  another's  fervor  even  when  his  own 
wrongs  were  in  question.  He  would  not  have  made  a 
good  follower  in  a  revolution,  nor  a  leader.  He  would 
simply  have  found  his  own  place  of  fixed  principle 
and  abided  there.  Then,  too,  he  had  a  judicial  mind 
which  could  combine  the  elements  of  counsels  for  and 
against  his  own  cause. 

100 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Now,  look  at  here/'  he  said,  slowly,  "I  ain't  goin' 
to  say  I  don't  think  we  ain't  in  a  hard  place,  and  that 
there's  somethin'  wrong  that's  to  blame  for  it,  but  I 
dunrio  but  you  go  most  too  far,  Nahum;  or,  rather,  I 
dunno  as  you  go  far  enough.  I  dunno  but  we've  got 
to  dig  down  past  the  poor  and  the  rich,  farther  into  the 
everlastin'  foundations  of  things  to  get  at  what's  the 
trouble." 

Jim  Tenny,  standing  in  the  parlor  doorway,  with  an 
arm  around  Eva's  waist,  broke  in  suddenly  with  a 
defiant  laugh.  "I  don't  care  nothin'  about  the  ever 
lastin'  foundations  of  things,  and  I  don't  care  a  darn 
about  the  rich  and  the  poor,"  he  proclaimed.  "I'm 
willin'  to  leave  that  to  lecturers  and  dynamiters,  and  let 
'em  settle  it  if  they  can.  I  don't  grudge  the  rich  nothin', 
and  I  ain't  goin'  to  call  the  Almighty  to  account  for 
givin'  somebody  else  the  biggest  piece  of  pie;  mebbe  it 
would  give  me  the  stomach-ache.  All  I'm  concerned 
about  is  Lloyd's  shut-down." 

"That's  so,"  said  Eva. 

"  I  tell  you,  sir,  it  ain't  the  facts  of  the  case,  but  the 
reason  for  the  facts,  which  we  must  think  of,"  main 
tained  Nahum  Beals. 

"I  don't  care  a  darn  for  the  facts  nor  the  reasons," 
said  Jim  Tenny;  "all  I  care  about  is  I'm  out  of  work 
maybe  till  spring,  with  my  mother  dependent  on  me, 
and  not  a  cent  laid  up,  I've  been  so  darned  careless, 
and  here's  Eva  says  she  won't  marry  me  till  I  get  work." 

"I  won't,"  said  Eva,  who  was  very  pale,  except  for 
burning  spots  on  her  cheeks. 

"She's  afraid  she  won't  get  frostin'  on  her  cake, 
and  silk  dresses,  I  expect,"  Jim  Tenny  said,  and  laugh 
ed,  but  his  laugh  was  very  bitter. 

"Jim  Tenny,  you  know  better  than  that,"  Eva  cried, 
sharply.  "I  won't  stand  that." 

Jim  Tenny,  with  a  quick  motion,  unwound  his  arm 

101 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

from  Eva's  waist  and  stripped  up  his  sleeve.  "There, 
look  at  that,  will  you,"  he  cried  out,  shaking  his  lean, 
muscular  arm  at  them;  "look  at  that  muscle,  and 
me  tellin'  her  that  I  could  earn  a  livin'  for  her,  and 
she  afraid.  I  can  dig  if  I  can't  make  shoes.  I  guess 
there's  work  in  this  world  for  them  that's  willin',  and 
don't  pick  and  choose." 

"There  ain't/'  declared  Nahum,  shortly. 

"You  can't  dig  when  the  ground's  froze  hard,"  Eva 
said,  with  literal  meaning. 

"Then  I'll  take  a  pickaxe,"  cried  Jim. 

"  You  can  dig,  but  who's  goin'  to  pay  you  for  the 
cliggin'?"  demanded  Nahum  Deals. 

"  The  idea  of  a  girl's  bein'  afraid  I  wa'n't  enough  of 
a  man  to  support  a  wife  with  an  arm  like  that,"  said 
Jim  Tenny,  "as  if  I  couldn't  dig  for  her,  or  fight  for 
her." 

"  The  fightin'  has  got  to  come  first  in  order  to  get  the 
diggin',  and  the  pay  for  it,"  said  Nahum. 

"Now,  look  at  here,"  Andrew  Brewster  broke  in, 
"you  know  I'm  in  as  bad  a  box  as  you,  and  I  come 
home  to-night  feelin'  as  if  I  didn't  care  whether  I  lived 
or  died;  but  if  it's  true  what  McGrath  said  to-night, 
we've  got  to  use  common-sense  in  lookin'  at  things 
even  if  it  goes  against  us.  If  wrhat  McGrath  said  was 
true,  that  Lloyd's  losing  money  keeping  on,  I  dunno 
how  wre  can  expect  him  or  any  other  man  to  do  that." 

"  Why  not  he  lose  money  as  well  as  we?"  demanded 
Nahum,  fiercely. 

"  'Cause  we  'ain't  got  none  to  lose/'  cried  Jim  Tenm-, 
with  a  hard  laugh,  and  Eva  and  Fanny  echoed  him 
hysterically. 

Nahum  took  no  notice  of  the  interruption.  Tragedy, 
to  his  comprehension,  never  verged  on  comedy.  One 
could  imagine  his  face  of  intense  melancholy  and  de 
nunciation  relaxed  with  laughter  no  more  than  that  of 

102 


THE    PORTION     OF    LABOR 

the  stern  prophet  of  righteous  retribution  whose  name 
he  bore. 

"Why  shouldn't  Norman  Lloyd  lose  money?"  he 
demanded  again.  "  Wtry  shouldn't  he  lose  his  fine 
house  as  well  as  I  my  poor  little  home?  Why  shouldn't 
he  lose  his  purple  and  fine  linen  as  well  as  Jim  his 
chances  of  happiness?  Why  shouldn't  he  lose  his  dia 
mond  shirt-studs,  and  his  carriage  and  horses,  as  well 
as  Joe  his  life?" 

"  Well,  he  earned  his  money,  I  suppose,"  Andrew 
said,  slowly,  "and  I  suppose  it's  for  him  to  say  what 
he'll  do  with  it." 

"Earned  his  money?  He  didn't  earn  his  money," 
cried  Nahum  Beals.  "We  earned  it,  every  dollar  of 
it,  by  the  sweat  of  our  brows,  and  it's  for  us,  not  him,  to 
say  what  shall  be  done  with  it.  Well,  the  time  will 
come,  I  tell  ye,  the  time  will  come." 

"We  sha'n't  see  it,"  said  Joe  Atkins. 

"  It  may  come  sooner  than  you  think,"  said  Nahum. 
Then  Nahum  Beals,  with  a  sudden  access  of  bitterness, 
broke  in.  "  Look  at  Norman  Lloyd,"  he  cried,  "  havin' 
that  great  house,  and  horses  and  carriages,  and  dressin' 
like  a  dude,  and  his  wife  rustlin'  in  silks  so  you  can 
hear  her  comin'  a  mile  off,  and  shinin'  like  a  jeweller's 
window — look  at  'em  all — all  the  factory  bosses — livin' 
like  princes  on  the  money  we've  earned  for  'em;  and 
look  at  their  relations,  and  look  at  the  rich  folks  that 
ain't  never  earned  a  cent,  that's  had  money  left  'em. 
Go  right  up  and  down  the  Main  Street,  here  in  this  city. 
See  the  Lloyds  and  the  Maguires  and  the  Marshalls  and 
the  Risleys  and  the  Lennoxes — " 

"There  ain't  none  of  the  Lennoxes  left  except  that 
one  woman,"  said  Andrew. 

"Well,  look  at  her.  There  she  is  without  chick  or 
child,  rollin'  in  riches,  and  Norman  Lloyd's  her  own 
brother-in-law.  Why  don't  she  give  him  a  little  money 

103 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  run  the  factory  this  winter,  so  you  and  me  won't 
have  to  lose  everythin'?" 

"  I  suppose  she's  got  a  right  to  do  as  she  pleases  with 
her  own/'  said  Andrew. 

"I  tell  you  she  ain't,"  shouted  Nahum.  "She  ain't 
the  one  to  say, '  It's  the  Lord,  and  He's  said  it. '  Cynthia 
Lennox  and  all  the  women  like  her  are  the  oppressors 
of  the  poor.  They  are  accursed  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord, 
as  were  those  women  we  read  about  in  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  with  their  mantles  and  crisping-pins.  Their  lo\vr 
voices  and  their  silk  sweeps  and  their  shrinkin'  from 
touchin'  shoulders  with  their  fellow-beings  in  a  crowd 
don't  alter  matters  a  mite." 

"Now,  Nahum,"  cried  Jim  Tenny,  with  one  of  his 
sudden  turns  of  base  when  his  sense  of  humor  wras 
touched,  "you  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  want 
Cynthia  Lennox  to  give  you  her  money?" 

"I'd  die,  and  see  her  dead,  before  I'd  touch  a  dollar  of 
her  money!"  cried  Nahum — "before  I'd  touch  a  dollar 
of  her  money  or  anything  that  was  bought  with  her 
money,  her  money  or  any  other  rich  person's.  I  want 
what  I  earn.  I  don't  want  a  gift  \vith  a  curse  on  it. 
Let  her  keep  her  fine  things.  She  and  her  kind  are 
responsible  for  all  the  misery  of  the  poor  on  the  face  of 
the  earth." 

"Seems  to  me  you're  reasonin'  in  a  circle,  Nahum," 
Andrew  said,  good-humoredly. 

"  Look  here,  Andrew,  if  you're  on  the  side  of  the  rich, 
why  don't  you  say  so?"  cried  Eva. 

"He  ain't,"  returned  Fanny  —  "you  know  better, 
Eva  Loud." 

"No,  I  ain't,"  declared  Andrew-.  "You  all  of  you 
know  I'm  with  the  class  I  belong  to;  I  ain't  a  toady  to 
no  rich  folks;  I  don't  think  no  more  of  'em  than  you 
do,  and  I  don't  want  any  favors  of  'em — all  I  want  is 
pay  for  my  honest  work,  and  that's  an  even  swap,  and 

104 


I  ain't  beholden,  but  I  want  to  look  at  things  fair  and 
square.  I  don't  want  to  be  carried  away  because  I'm 
out  of  work,  though,  God  knows,  it's  hard  enough." 

"  I  don't  know  what's  goin'  to  become  of  us,"  said 
Joseph  Atkins — then  he  coughed. 

"I  don't,"  Jim  Tenny  said,  bitterly. 

"And  God  knows  I  don't,"  cried  Eva,  and  she  sat 
down  in  the  nearest  chair,  flung  up  her  hands  before 
her  face,  and  wept. 

Then  Fanny  spoke  to  Ellen,  wrho  had  been  sitting 
very  still  and  attentive,  her  eyes  growing  larger,  her 
cheeks  redder  with  excitement.  Fanny  had  often 
glanced  uneasily  at  her,  and  wished  to  send  her  to 
bed,  but  she  was  in  the  habit  of  warming  Ellen's  little 
chamber  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  by  leaving  open  the 
sitting-room  door  for  a  while  before  she  went  to  it,  and 
she  was  afraid  of  cooling  the  room  too  much  for  Joseph 
Atkins,  and  had  not  ventured  to  interrupt  the  conversa 
tion  .  Now,  seeing  the  child's  fevered  face,  she  made  up 
her  mind.  "  Come,  Ellen,  it's  your  bed-time,"  she  said, 
and  Ellen  rose  reluctantly,  and,  kissing  her  father,  she 
went  to  her  aunt  Eva,  who  caught  at  her  convulsively 
and  kissed  her,  and  sobbed  against  her  cheek.  "Oh, 
oh!"  she  wailed,  "you  precious  little  thing,  you  precious 
little  thing,  I  don't  know  what's  goin'  to  become  of  us 
all." 

"Don't,  Eva,"  said  Fanny,  sharply;  can't  you  see 
she's  all  wrought  up?  She  hadn't  ought  to  have  heard 
all  this  talk." 

Andrew  looked  anxiously  at  his  wife,  rose,  and  caught 
up  Ellen  in  his  arms  with  a  hug  of  fervent  and  protective 
love.  "  Don't  you  worry,  father's  darlin',"  he  whispered. 
"  Don't  you  worry  about  anythin'  you  have  heard. 
Father  will  always  have  enough  to  take  care  of  you 
with." 

Jim  Tenny,  when  Andrew  set  the  child  down,  caught 

105 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  up  again  with  a  sounding  kiss.  "  Don't  you  let  your 
big  ears  ache,  you  little  pitcher/'  said  he,  with  a  gay 
laugh.  "Little  doll-babies  like  you  haven't  anythin* 
to  worry  about  if  Lloyd's  shut  down  every  day  in  the 
year." 

"They're  the  very  ones  whom  it  concerns/'  said 
Nahum  Deals,  when  Ellen  and  her  mother  had  gone 
up-stairs. 

"  Well,  I  wouldn't  have  had  that  little  nervous  thing 
hear  all  this,  if  I'd  thought/'  Andrew  said,  anxiously. 

Joseph  Atkins,  whom  Fanny  had  stationed  in  a  shel 
tered  corner  near  the  stove  when  she  opened  the  door, 
peered  around  at  Andrew. 

"  Seems  as  if  she  \vas  too  young  to  get  much  sense  of 
it,"  he  remarked.  "  My  Maria,  that's  her  age,  wouldn't. " 

"Ellen  hears  everything  and  makes  her  own  sense 
of  it,"  said  Andrew,  "and  the  Lord  only  knows  what 
she's  made  of  this.  I  hope  she  won't  fret  over  it." 

"  I  wish  my  tongue  had  been  cut  off  before  I  said 
anything  before  her/'  cried  Eva.  "I  know  just  what 
that  child  is.  She'll  find  out  what  a  hard  world  she's 
in  soon  enough,  anyway,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  the  one 
to  open  her  eyes  ahead  of  time." 

Ellen  went  to  bed  quietly,  and  her  mother  did  not  think 
she  had  paid  much  attention  to  what  had  been  going  on, 
and  said  so  when  she  went  down-stairs  after  Ellen  had 
been  kissed  and  tucked  in  bed  and  the  lamp  put  out. 
"I  guess  she  didn't  mind  much  about  it,  after  all,"  she 
said  to  Andrew.  "  I  guess  the  room  was  pretty  warm, 
and  that  was  what  made  her  cheeks  so  red." 

But  Ellen,  after  her  mother  left  her,  turned  her  little 
head  towards  the  wall  and  wept  softly,  lest  some  one 
hear  her,  but  none  the  less  bitterly  that  she  had  no  right 
conception  of  the  cause  of  her  grief.  There  was  over 
her  childish  soul  the  awful  shadow  of  the  labor  and 
poverty  of  the  world.  She  knew  naught  of  the  sub- 

106 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stance  behind  the  sha'dow,  but  the  darkness  terrified 
her  all  the  more,  and  she  cried  and  cried  as  if  her  heart 
would  break.  Then  she,  with  a  sudden  resolution, 
born  she  could  not  have  told  of  what  strange  under 
standing  and  misunderstanding  of  what  she  had  heard 
that  evening,  slipped  out  of  bed,  groped  about  until 
she  found  her  cherished  doll,  sitting  in  her  little  chair 
in  the  corner.  She  was  accustomed  to  take  the  doll  to 
bed  with  her,  and  had  undressed  her  for  that  purpose 
early  in  the  evening,  but  she  had  climbed  into  bed  and 
left  her  sitting  in  the  corner. 

"Don't  you  want  your  dolly?"  her  mother  had 
asked. 

"No,  ma'am;  I  guess  I  don't  want  her  to-night," 
Ellen  had  replied,  with  a  little  break  in  her  voice.  Now, 
when  she  reached  the  doll,  she  gathered  her  up  in  her 
little  arms,  and  groped  her  \vay  with  her  into  the  closet. 
She  hugged  the  doll,  and  kissed  her  \vildly,  then  she 
shook  her.  "You  have  been  naughty,"  she  wrhispered 
— "yes,  you  have,  dreadful  naughty.  No,  don't  you 
talk  to  me;  you  have  been  naughty.  What  right  had 
you  to  be  livin'  with  rich  folks,  and  wearin'  such  fine 
things,  when  other  children  don't  have  anything. 
What  right  had  that  little  boy  that  was  your  mother  be 
fore  I  was,  and  that  rich  lady  that  gave  you  to  me? 
They  had  ought  to  be  put  in  the  closet,  too.  God  had 
ought  to  put  them  all  in  the  closet,  the  way  I'm  goin' 
to  put  you.  Don't  you  say  a  word;  you  needn't  cry; 
you've  been  dreadful  naughty." 

Ellen  set  the  doll,  face  to  the  wall,  in  the  corner  of 
the  closet,  and  left  her  there.  Then  she  crept  back 
into  bed,  and  lay  there  crying  over  her  precious  baby 
shivering  in  her  thin  night-gown  all  alone  in  the  dark 
closet.  But  she  was  firm  in  keeping  her  there,  since, 
with  that  strange,  involuntary  grasp  of  symbolism 
which  has  always  been  maintained  by  the  baby-fingers 

107 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  humanity  for  the  satisfying  of  needs  beyond  resources 
and  the  solving  of  problems  outside  knowledge,  she  had 
a  conviction  that  she  was,  in  such  fashion,  righting 
wrong  and  punishing  evil.  But  she  wept  over  the  poor 
doll  until  she  fell  asleep. 

108 


CHAPTER  X 

WHEN  Ellen  woke  the  next  morning  sne  had  a  curious 
feeling,  as  if  she  were  blinded  by  the  glare  of  many 
hitherto  unsuspected  windows  opening  into  the  great 
ness  outside  the  little  world,  just  large  enough  to  contain 
them,  in  which  she  had  dwelt  all  her  life  with  her  parents, 
her  aunt,  her  grandmother,  and  her  doll.  She  tried  to 
adjust  herself  to  her  old  point  of  view  with  her  simple 
childish  recognition  of  the  most  primitive  facts  as  a 
basis  for  dreams,  but  she  remembered  what  Mr.  Atkins, 
who  coughed  so  dreadfully,  had  said  the  night  before; 
she  remembered  what  the  young  man  with  the  bulg 
ing  forehead,  who  frightened  her  terribly,  had  said; 
she  remembered  the  gloomy  look  in  her  father's  face, 
the  misery  in  her  aunt  Eva's;  and  she  remembered 
her  doll  in  the  closet — and  either  everything  was  dif 
ferent  or  had  a  different  light  upon  it.  In  reality 
Ellen's  evening  in  the  sound  and  sight  of  that  current 
of  rebellion  against  the  odds  of  life  which  has  taken 
the  poor  off  their  foothold  of  understanding  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world  had  aged  her.  She  had  lost 
something  out  of  her  childhood.  She  dreaded  to  go 
down -stairs;  she  had  a  feeling  of  shamefacedness 
struggling  within  her;  she  was  afraid  that  her  father 
and  mother  would  look  at  her  sharply,  then  look  again, 
and  ask  her  what  the  matter  was,  and  she  would  not 
know  what  to  say.  When  she  went  down,  and  backed 
about  for  her  mother  to  fasten  her  little  frock  as  was  her 
wont,  she  was  careful  to  keep  her  face  turned  away; 
but  Fanny  caught  her  up  and  kissed  her  in  her  usual 

109 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

way,  and  then  her  aunt  Eva  sung  out  to  know  if  she 
wanted  to  go  on  a  sleigh-ride,  and  had  she  seen  the 
snow;  and  then  her  father  came  in  and  that  look  of 
last  night  had  gone  from  his  face,  and  Ellen  was  her 
old  self  again  until  she  was  alone  by  herself  and  re 
membered. 

Fanny  and  Andrew  and  Eva  had  agreed  to  say  noth 
ing  before  the  child  about  the  shutting-up  of  Lloyd's, 
and  their  troubles  in  consequence.  "  She  heard  too 
much  last  night/'  Andrew  said;  "there's  no  use  in 
her  botherin'  her  little  head  with  it.  I  guess  that  baby 
won't  suffer." 

"She's  jest  the  child  to  fret  herself  most  to  pieces 
thinkin'  we  were  awful  poor,  and  she  would  starve  or 
somethin'/'  Fanny  said. 

"  Well,  she  sha'n't  be  worried  if  I  can  help  it,  no  matter 
what  happens  to  me,"  Eva  said. 

After  breakfast  that  morning  Eva  went  to  work  on 
a  little  dress  of  Ellen's.  When  Fanny  told  her  not  to 
spend  her  time  over  that,  when  she  had  so  much  sewing 
of  her  own  to  do,  Eva  replied  with  a  gay,  hard  laugh, 
that  she  guessed  she'd  wait  and  finish  her  weddin'-fix 
when  she  was  goin'  to  be  married. 

"  Eva  Loud,  you  ain't  goin'  to  be  so  silly  as  to  put  off 
your  weddin',"  Fanny  cried  out. 

" I  dunno  as  I've  put  it  off;  I  dunno  as  I  want  to  get 
married,  anyhow,"  Eva  said,  still  laughing.  "  I  dunno, 
but  I'd  rather  be  old  maid  aunt  to  Ellen." 

"Eva  Loud,"  cried  her  sister;  "do  you  know  what 
you  are  doin'?" 

"  Pretty  well,  I  reckon,"  said  Eva. 

"  Do  you  know  that  if  you  put  off  Jim  Tenny,  and  he 
not  likin'  it,  ten  chances  to  one  Aggie  Bemis  will  get 
hold  of  him  again?" 

"Well,"  said  Eva,  "let  her.  I  won't  have  been  the 
one  to  drag  him  into  misery,  anyhow." 

no 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Well,  if  you  can  feel  that  way,"  Fanny  returned, 
looking  at  her  sister  with  a  sort  of  mixed  admiration 
and  pity. 

"I  can.  I  tell  you  what  'tis,  Fanny.  When  I  look 
at  Jim,  handsome  and  head  up  in  the  air,  and  think 
how  he'd  look  all  bowed  down,  hair  turnin'  gray,  and 
not  carin'  whether  he's  shaved  and  has  on  a  clean  shirt 
or  not,  'cause  he's  got  loaded  down  with  debt,  and  the 
grocery-man  and  the  butcher  after  him,  and  no  work, 
and  me  and  the  children  draggin'  him  down,  I  can  bear 
anything.  If  another  girl  wants  to  do  it,  she  must, 
though  I'd  like  to  kill  her  when  I  think  of  it.  I  can't 
do  it,  because — I  think  too  much  of  him." 

"  He  might  lose  his  work  after  he  was  married,  you 
know." 

"Well,  I  suppose  we'd  have  to  run  the  risk  of  that; 
but  I'm  goin'  to  start  fair  or  not  at  all." 

"  Well,  maybe  he'll  get  work,"  Fanny  said. 

"He  won't,"  said  Eva.  She  began  to  sing  "Nancy 
Lee"  over  Ellen's  dress. 

After  breakfast  Ellen  begged  a  piece  of  old  brown 
calico  of  her  mother.  "  Why,  of  course  you  can  have  it, 
child,"  said  her  mother;  "but  what  on  earth  do  you 
want  it  for?  I  was  goin'  to  put  it  in  the  rag-bag." 

"I  want  to  make  my  dolly  a  dress." 

"Why,  that  ain't  fit  for  your  dolly's  dress.  Only 
think  how  queer  that  beautiful  doll  would  look  in  a 
dress  made  of  that.  Why,  you  'ain't  thought  anything 
but  silk  and  satin  was  good  enough  for  her." 

"  I'll  give  you  a  piece  of  my  new  blue  silk  to  make 
your  doll  a  dress,"  said  Eva. 

But  Ellen  persisted.  When  the  doll  came  out  of  her 
closet  of  vicarious  penance  she  was  arrayed  like  a  very 
scullion  among  dolls,  in  the  remnant  of  the  dress  in  which 
Fanny  Brewster  had  done  her  house-work  all  summer. 

"  There,"  Ellen  told  the  doll,  when  her  mother  did  not 
III 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

hear  "  you  look  more  like  the  way  you  ought  to,  and 
you  ought  to  be  happy,  and  not  ever  think  you  wish 
you  had  your  silk  dress  on.  Think  of  all  the  poor  chil 
dren  who  never  have  any  silk  dresses,  or  any  dresses  at 
all — nothing  except  their  cloth  bodies  in  the  coldest 
weather.  You  ought  to  be  thankful  to  have  this." 
For  all  which  good  advice  and  philosophy  the  little 
mother  of  the  doll  would  often  look  at  the  discarded 
beavity  of  the  wardrobe,  with  tears  in  her  eyes  and 
fondest  pity  in  her  heart ;  but  she  never  flinched.  When 
the  young  man  Nahum  Beals  came  in,  as  he  often 
did  of  an  evening,  and  raised  his  voice  in  fierce  de 
nunciation  against  the  luxury  and  extravagance  of 
the  rich,  Ellen  would  listen  and  consider  that  he  would 
undoubtedly  approve  of  what  she  had  done,  did  he  know, 
and  would  allow  that  she  had  made  her  small  effort  tow 
ards  righting  things. 

"  Only  think  what  Mr.  Beals  would  say  if  he  saw  you 
in  your  silk  dress;  why,  I  don't  know  but  he  would 
throw  you  out  of  the  window/'  she  told  her  doll  once. 

Ellen  did  not  feel  any  difference  in  her  way  of  living 
after  her  father  was  out  of  work.  "  She  ain't  goin'  to 
be  stented  in  one  single  thing;  remember  that,"  Andrew 
told  Fanny,  with  angry  emphasis.  "  That  little,  delicate 
thing  is  goin'  to  have  everything  she  needs,  if  I  spend 
every  cent  I've  saved  and  mortgage  the  place." 

"Oh,  you'll  get  work  before  it  comes  to  that,"  Fanny 
said,  consolingly. 

"  Whether  I  do  or  not,  it  sha'n't  make  any  difference," 
declared  Andrew.  "  I'm  goin'  to  hire  a  horse  and  sleigh 
and  take  her  sleigh-ridin'  this  afternoon.  It  '11  be  good, 
and  she's  been  talkin'  about  a  sleigh-ride  ever  since 
snow  flew." 

"  She  could  do  without  that,"  Fanny  said,  doubtfully. 

"Well,  she  ain't  goin' to." 

So  it  happened  that  the  very  day  after  Lloyd's  had 

112 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

shut  down,  when  every  man  out  of  employment  felt 
poorer  than  he  did  later  when  he  had  grown  accustomed 
to  the  sensation  of  no  money  coming  in,  Andrew  Brew- 
ster  hired  a  horse  and  double  sleigh,  and  took  Ellen, 
her  mother,  grandmother,  and  aunt  out  sleigh-riding. 
Ellen  sat  on  the  back  seat  of  the  sleigh,  full  of  that 
radiant  happiness  felt  by  a  child  whose  pleasures  have 
not  been  repeated  often  enough  for  satiety.  The  sleigh 
slid  over  the  blue  levels  of  snow  followed  by  long  creaks 
like  wakes  of  sound,  when  the  livery-stable  horse  shook 
his  head  proudly  and  set  his  bells  in  a  flurry.  Ellen 
drew  a  long  breath  of  rapture.  These  unaccustomed 
sounds  held  harmonies  of  happiness  which  would 
echo  through  her  future,  for  no  one  can  estimate  the 
immortality  of  some  little  delight  of  a  child.  In  all  her 
life,  Ellen  never  forgot  that  sleigh-ride.  It  was  a  very 
cold  day,  and  the  virgin  snow  did  not  melt  at  all;  the 
wind  blew  a  soft,  steady  pressure  from  the  west,  and  its 
wings  were  evident  from  the  glistening  crystals  which 
were  lifted  and  borne  along.  The  trees  held  their 
shining  boughs  against  the  blue  of  the  sky,  and  burned 
and  blazed  here  and  there  as  with  lamps  of  diamonds. 
The  child  looked  at  them,  and  they  lit  her  soul.  Her 
little  face,  between  the  swan's-down  puffs  of  her  hood, 
deepened  in  color  like  a  rose;  her  blue  eyes  shone;  she 
laughed  and  dimpled  silently;  she  was  in  too  much 
bliss  to  speak.  The  others  kept  looking  at  her,  then 
at  one  another.  Fanny  nudged  her  mother-in-law, 
behind  the  child's  back,  and  the  two  women  exchanged 
glances  of  confidential  pride.  Andrew  and  Eva  kept 
glancing  around  at  her,  and  asking  if  she  were  having 
a  good  time.  Eva  was  smartly  dressed  in  her  best  hat, 
gay  with  bows  and  red  wings  bristling  as  sharply  as 
the  head-dress  of  an  Indian  chief  in  the  old  pictures. 
She  had  a  red  coat,  and  a  long  fur  boa  wound  around 
her  throat;  the  clear  crimson  of  her  cheeks,  her  great 
H  113 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

black  eyes,  and  her  heavy  black  braids  were  so  striking 
that  people  whom  they  met  looked  long  at  her.  Eva 
talked  fast  to  Andrew,  and  laughed  often  and  loudly. 

Whenever  that  strident  laugh  of  hers  rang  out,  Mrs. 
Zelotes  Brewster,  on  the  seat  behind,  moved  her  be- 
shawled  shoulders  with  a  shivering  hunch  of  disgust. 
"  Can't  you  tell  that  girl  not  to  laugh  so  loud  when  we're 
out  ridin'/'  she  said  to  her  son  that  evening;  "I  saw 
folks  lookin'." 

"Oh,  never  mind,  mother,"  Andrew  said;  "the  poor 
girl's  got  a  good  deal  on  her  mind." 

"I  suppose  you  mean  that  Tinny  feller,"  said  Mrs. 
Zelotes,  alluding  to  something  which  had  happened 
that  afternoon  in  the  course  of  the  sleigh-ride. 

The  sleighing  that  day  was  excellent,  for  there  had 
been  an  ice  coating  on  the  road  before,  and  the  last 
not  very  heavy  snowfall  had  been  just  enough.  The 
Brewsters  passed  and  met  many  others  :  young  men  out 
with  their  sweethearts,  whole  families  drawn  by  the 
sober  old  horse  as  old  as  the  grown-up  children ;  rakish 
young  men  driving  stable  teams,  leaning  forward  with 
long  circles  of  whip  over  the  horses'  backs,  leaving  the 
scent  of  cigars  behind  them ;  and  often,  too,  two  young 
ladies  in  dainty  turnouts;  and  sometimes  two  girls  or 
four  girls  from  Lloyd's,  who  had  clubbed  together  and 
hired  a  sleigh,  taking  reckless  advantage  of  their  en 
forced  vacation. 

"  There's  Daisy  and  Hat  Sears,  and — and  there's  Nell 
White  and  Eaat  Ryoce  in  the  team  behind,"  Eva  said. 

"  I  should  think  they  better  be  savin'  their  money  if 
Lloyd's  has  shut  up,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  severely. 

"  We  ain't  savin'  ours,  or  Andrew  ain't/'  Eva  retorted, 
with  a  laugh. 

"It's  different  with  us,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  proudly, 
"though  I  shouldn't  think  it  was  right  for  Andrew  to 
hire  a  team  every  day." 

114 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Sometimes  I  think  folks  might  just  as  well  have  a 
little  as  they're  goin'  along,  for  half  the  time  they  never 
seem  to  get  there/'  Eva  said,  with  another  hard  laugh 
at  her  own  wit;  and  just  then  she  saw  something  which 
made  her  turn  deathly  white,  and  catch  her  breath  with 
a  gasp  in  spite  of  herself,  though  that  was  all.  She 
held  up  her  head  like  a  queen  and  turned  her  handsome 
white  face  full  towards  Jim  Tenny  and  the  girl  for  whom 
he  had  jilted  her  before,  as  they  drove  past,  and  bowed 
and  smiled  in  a  fashion  which  made  the  red  flame  up 
over  the  young  man's  swarthy  cheek,  and  the  pretty 
girl  at  his  side  shrink  a  little  and  avert  her  tousled  fair 
head  with  a  nervous  giggle. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster  twisted  herself  about  and 
looked  after  them.  "  There's  John  Tibbets  and  his  wife 
in  that  sleigh ;  he's  thrown  out  of  work  as  well  as  you, 
Andrew,"  said  Fanny,  hastily.  "See  that  feather  in 
her  bonnet  blow;  it's  standin'  up  straight."  But 
Fanny's  manoeuvre  to  turn  the  attention  of  her  mother- 
in-law  was  of  no  avail,  for  nothing  short  of  sudden 
death  could  interpose  an  effectual  barrier  between  Mrs. 
Zelotes  Brewster's  tongue  and  mind  set  with  the  pur 
pose  of  speech.  "Was  that  the  Tinny  fellow?"  she 
demanded. 

"Yes;  I  guess  so.  I  didn't  notice  in  particular," 
Fanny  replied,  in  a  low  voice.  Then  she  added,  point 
ing  to  an  advancing  sleigh.  "Good  land,  there's 
that  Smith  girl.  They  said  she  wasn't  able  to  ride  out. 
Seems  to  me  she's  taken  a  queer  day  for  it." 

"Was  that  that  Tinny  fellow?"  Mrs.  Zelotes  asked 
again.  She  leaned  forward  and  gave  Eva  a  hard  nudge 
on  her  red-coated  elbow. 

"  Yes,  it  was,"  Eva  answered,  calmly. 

"  Who  was  that  girl  with  him?" 

"It  was  Aggie  Bemis." 

Mrs.  Zelotes  gave  a  sniff,  then  she  settled  back,  study- 
US 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ing  Eva's  back  with  a  sort  of  reflective  curiosity.  Pres 
ently  she  fumbled  under  the  sleigh  cushion  for  an 
extra  shawl  which  she  had  brought,  and  handed  it 
up  to  Eva.  "Don't  you  want  this  extra  shawl?"  she 
asked,  while  Fanny  stared  at  her  wonderingly.  Mrs. 
Zelotes's  civilities  towards  her  sister  had  been  few  and 
far  between. 

"  No,  thank  you/'  Eva  replied,  with  a  start. 

"Hadn't  you  better?  It  must  be  pretty  cold  sitting 
up  there.  You  must  take  all  the  wind.  You  can  wrap 
this  shawl  all  round  your  face  and  ears,  and  I  don't 
want  it." 

"No,  thank  you;  I'm  plenty  wrarm,"  Eva  replied. 
She  swallowed  hard,  and  set  her  mouth  hard.  There 
was  something  about  this  kindness  of  her  old  disap- 
prover  which  touched  her  deepl3T,  and  moved  her  to 
weakness  more  than  had  the  sight  of  her  recreant 
lover  with  another  girl.  Fanny  sawr  the  little  quiver 
pass  over  her  sister's  face,  and  leaned  over  and  whis 
pered. 

"I  shouldn't  be  a  mite  surprised  if  that  girl  asked 
Jim  to  take  her.  It  would  be  just  like  her." 

"It  don't  make  any  odds  whether  she  did  or  not," 
returned  Eva,  with  no  affectation  of  secrecy.  "  I  don't 
care  which  way  'twas."  She  sat  up  straighter  than 
ever,  and  some  men  in  a  passing  sleigh  turned  to  look 
after  her. 

"I  'spose  she  don't  think  my  shawl  looks  genteel 
enough  to  wear,"  Mrs.  Zelotes  said  to  Fanny;  "but 
she's  dreadful  silly." 

They  drove  through  the  main  street  of  the  city  and 
passed  Cynthia  Lennox's  house.  Ellen  looked  at  it 
with  the  guilt  of  secrecy.  She  thought  she  saw  the 
lady's  head  at  a  front  window,  and  the  front  door  opened 
and  Cynthia  came  down  the  walk  with  a  rich  sweep  of 
black  draperies,  and  the  soft  sable  toss  of  plumes. 

116 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"There's  Cynthia  Lennox,"  said  Fanny.  "She's  a 
handsome-lookin'  woman,  ain't  she?" 

"  She's  most  as  old  as  Andrew,  but  you'd  never  sus 
pect  it,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes.  She  had  used  to  have  a 
fancy  that  Andrew  and  Cynthia  might  make  a  match. 
She  had  seen  no  reason  to  the  contrary,  and  she  al 
ways  looked  at  Cynthia  with  a  curious  sense  of  injury 
and  resentment  when  she  thought  of  what  might  have 
been. 

As  Cynthia  Lennox  swept  down  the  walk  to-day,  the 
old  lady  said,  sharply: 

"  I  don't  see  why  she  should  walk  any  prouder  than 
anybody  else.  I  don't  know  why  she  should,  if  she's 
right-minded.  The  Lennoxes  wasn't  any  grander  than 
the  Brewsters  way  back,  if  they  have  got  a  little  more 
money  of  late  years.  Cynthia's  grandfather,  old  Squire 
Lennox,  used  to  keep  the  store,  and  live  in  one  side  of  it, 
and  her  mother's  father,  Calvin  Goodenough,  kept  the 
tavern.  I  dunno  as  she  has  so  much  to  be  proud  of, 
though  she's  handsome  enough,  and  shows  her  bringin' 
up,  as  folks  can't  that  ain't  had  it."  Fanny  winced  a 
little ;  her  bringing  up  was  a  sore  subject  with  her. 

"  Well,  folks  can't  help  their  bringin'  up,"  she  retorted, 
sharply. 

"There's  Lloyd's  team,"  Andrew  said,  quickly,  part 
ly  to  avert  the  impending  tongue -clash  between  his 
wife  and  mother. 

He  reined  his  horse  to  one  side  at  a  respectful  distance, 
and  Norman  H.  Lloyd,  with  his  wife  at  his  side,  swept  by 
in  his  fine  sleigh,  streaming  on  the  wind  with  black 
fur  tails,  his  pair  of  bays  stepping  high  to  the  music  of 
their  arches  of  bells.  The  Brewsters  eyed  Norman 
Lloyd's  Russian  coat  with  the  wide  sable  collar  turned 
up  around  his  proud,  clear-cut  face,  the  fur-gauntleted 
hands  which  held  the  lines  and  the  whip,  for  Mr.  Lloyd 
preferred  to  drive  his  own  blooded  pair,  both  from  a  love 

117 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  horseflesh  and  a  greater  confidence  in  his  own  guid 
ance  than  in  that  of  other  people.  Mr.  Lloyd  was  no 
coward,  but  he  would  have  confided  to  no  man  his 
sensations  had  he  sat  behind  those  furnaces  of  fiery 
motion  with  other  hands  than  his  own  upon  the  lines. 

"I  should  think  Mis'  Lloyd  would  be  afraid  to  ride 
with  such  horses/'  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  as  they  leaped  aside 
in  passing;  then  she  bowed  and  smiled  with  eager 
pleasure,  and  yet  with  perfect  self-respect.  She  felt 
herself  every  whit  as  good  as  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd, 
and  her  handsome  Paisley  shawl  and  velvet  bonnet  as 
genteel  as  the  other  woman's  sealskins  and  floating 
plumes.  Mrs.  Lloyd  loomed  up  like  a  vast  figure  of 
richness  enveloped  in  her  bulky  winter  wraps;  her 
face  was  superb  with  health  and  enjoyment  and  good- 
humor.  Her  cheeks  were  a  deep  crimson  in  the  cold 
wind ;  she  smiled  radiantly  all  the  time  as  if  at  life  itself. 
She  had  no  thought  of  fear  behind  those  prancing 
bays  \vhich  seemed  so  frightful  to  Mrs.  Zelotes,  used  to 
the  steadiest  stable  team  a  few  times  during  the  year, 
and  driven  with  a  wary  eye  to  railroad  crossings  and 
a  sense  of  one's  mortality  in  the  midst  of  life  strong 
upon  her.  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  had  never  any  doubt 
when  her  husband  held  the  lines.  She  would  have 
smiled  behind  ostriches  and  zebras.  To  her  mind 
Norman  Lloyd  was,  as  it  were,  impregnable  to  all  com 
binations  of  alien  strength  or  circumstances.  When 
she  bowed  on  passing  the  Brewsters,  she  did  not  move 
her  fixed  smile  until  she  caught  sight  of  Ellen.  Then 
emotion  broke  through  the  even  radiance  of  her  face. 
She  moved  her  head  with  a  flurry  of  nods ;  she  waved  her 
hand ;  she  even  kissed  it  to  her. 

"Bow  to  Mis'  Lloyd,  Ellen/'  said  her  grandmother; 
and  Ellen  ducked  her  head  solemnly.  She  remembered 
what  she  had  heard  the  night  before,  and  the  sleigh  swept 
by,  Mrs.  Llo}^d's  rosy  face  smiling  back  over  the  black 

118 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

fringe  of  dancing  tails.  Eva  had  shot  a  swift  glance  of 
utmost  rancor  at  the  Lloyds,  then  sat  stiff  and  upright 
until  they  passed. 

"I  wouldn't  ask  Ellen  to  bow  to  that  woman/'  said 
she,  fiercely,  between  her  teeth.  "  I  hate  the  whole  tribe. ' ' 

No  one  heard  her  except  Andrew,  and  he  shook  the 
lines  over  the  steady  stable  horse,  and  said,  "G'lang!" 
hoarsely. 

Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd,  in  the  other  sleigh,  had  turned 
to  her  husband  with  somewhat  timid  and  deprecating 
enthusiasm.  "Ain't  she  a  sweet  little  girl?"  said  she. 

"What  little  girl?"  Lloyd  asked,  abstractedly.  He 
had  not  looked  at  the  Brewsters  at  all. 

"That  little  Ellen  Brewster  who  ran  away  and  \vas 
gone  most  three  days  a  little  while  ago.  She  was  in 
that  sleigh  we  just  passed.  She  is  just  the  sweetest 
child  I  ever  laid  eyes  on,"  and  Norman  Lloyd  smiled 
vaguely  and  coldly,  and  cast  a  glance  over  his  sable- 
clad  shoulders  to  see  how  far  behind  the  team  whose 
approaching  bells  he  heard  might  be. 

"I  suppose  her  father  and  aunt  are  out  of  work  on 
account  of  the  closing  of  the  factory/'  remarked  Mrs. 
Lloyd,  and  a  shadow  of  reflection  came  over  her  radiant 
face. 

"Yes,  I  believe  they  worked  there,"  Lloyd  replied, 
shaking  loose  the  reins  and  speeding  the  horses,  that 
he  might  not  be  overtaken.  In  a  few  minutes  they 
reached  the  factory  neighborhood.  There  were  three 
factories:  two  of  them  on  opposite  sides  of  the  road, 
humming  with  labor,  and  puffing  with  jets  of  steam  at 
different  points ;  Lloyd's,  beyond,  was  as  large  as  both 
those  standing  hushed  with  windows  blank  in  the  after 
noon  sunshine. 

"  I  suppose  the  poor  men  feel  pretty  badly  at  being 
thrown  out  of  work,"  Mrs.  Lloyd  said,  looking  up  at 
the  windows  as  she  slipped  past  in  her  nest  of  furs. 

119 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  They  feel  so  badly  that  I  have  seen  a  round  dozen 
since  we  started  out  taking  advantage  of  their  liberty 
to  have  a  sleigh-ride  with  livery  teams  at  a  good  round 
price,"  Lloyd  replied,  with  languid  emphasis.  He 
never  spoke  with  any  force  of  argument  to  his  wife,  nor 
indeed  to  any  one  else,  in  justification  of  his  actions. 
His  reasons  for  action  were  in  most  cases  self-evolved 
and  entirely  self-regulated.  He  had  said  not  a  word 
to  any  one,  not  even  to  his  foreman,  of  his  purpose  to 
close  the  factory  until  it  was  quite  fixed ;  he  had  asked 
no  advice,  explained  to  no  one  the  course  of  reasoning 
which  led  to  his  doing  so.  Rowe  was  a  city  of  strikes, 
but  there  had  never  been  a  strike  at  Lloyd's  because  he 
had  abandoned  the  situation  in  every  case  before  the 
clouds  of  rebellion  were  near  enough  for  the  storm  to 
break.  When  Briggs  and  McGuire,  the  rival  manu 
facturers  at  his  right  and  left,  had  resorted  to  cut  prices 
when  business  was  dull,  as  a  refuge  from  closing  up, 
Lloyd  closed  with  no  attempt  at  compromise. 

"I  suppose  they  need  a  little  recreation,"  Mrs.  Lloyd 
observed,  thinking  of  the  little  girl's  face  peeping  out 
between  her  mother  and  grandmother  in  the  sleigh 
they  had  just  passed. 

"  Their  little  recreation  is  on  about  the  same  scale  for 
them  as  my  hiring  a  special  railroad  train  every  day  in 
the  week  to  go  to  Boston  would  be  for  me/'  returned 
Lloyd,  setting  his  handsome  face  ahead  at  the  track. 

"  It  does  seem  dreadful  foolish,"  said  his  wife,  "  when 
they  are  out  of  work,  and  maybe  won't  earn  any  more 
money  to  support  their  families  all  winter — "  Mrs. 
Lloyd  hesitated  a  minute.  "I  wonder,"  said  she,  "if 
they  feel  sort  of  desperate,  and  think  they  won't  have 
enough  for  their  families,  anyway — that  is,  enough  to 
feed  them,  and  they  might  as  well  get  a  little  good  time 
out  of  it  to  remember  by-and-by  when  there  ain't  enough 
bread-and-butter.  I  dunno  but  we  might  do  something 

120 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

like  that,  if  \ve  were  in  their  places  —  don't  you,  Nor 
man?" 

"  No,  I  do  not,"  replied  Lloyd ;  "  and  that  is  the  reason 
why  you  and  I  are  not  in  their  places." 

Mrs.  Lloyd  put  her  sealskin  muff  before  her  face  as 
they  turned  a  windy  corner,  and  reflected  that  her 
husband  was  much  wiser  than  she,  and  that  the  world 
couldn't  be  regulated  by  women's  hearts,  pleasant 
as  it  would  be  for  the  world  and  the  women,  since  the 
final  outcome  would  doubtless  be  destruction. 

Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd  was  an  eminent  survival  of  the 
purest  and  oldest-fashioned  femininity,  a  very  woman 
of  St.  Paul,  except  that  she  did  not  keep  silence  in  the 
sanctuary. 

Just  after  they  had  turned  the  corner  they  passed  an 
outlying  grocery  store  much  frequented  as  a  louiiging- 
place  by  idle  men.  There  was  a  row  of  them  on  the 
wooden  platform  (backed  against  the  wall),  cold  as  it 
was.  watching  the  sleighs  pass,  and  two  or  three  knots 
gathered  together  for  the  purposes  of  confabulation. 
Nearly  all  of  them  were  employes  of  Lloyd's,  and 
they  had  met  at  that  unseasonable  hour  on  that 
bitter  day,  drifting  together  unconsciously  as  towards 
a  common  nucleus  of  trouble,  to  talk  over  the  situa 
tion. 

When  these  men,  huddled  up  in  their  shabby  great 
coats,  with  caps  pulled  over  shaggy  brows  and  sullenly 
flashing  eyes,  saw  the  Lloyds  approaching,  the  rumble 
of  conversation  suddenly  ceased.  They  all  stood  staring 
when  their  emploj^er  passed.  Only  one  man,  Nahum 
Deals,  looked  fairly  at  Lloyd's  face  with  a  denouncing 
flash  of  eyes. 

To  this  man  Lloyd,  recognizing  him  and  some  of 
the  others  as  his  employes,  bowed.  Nahum  Seals 
stood  glaring  at  him  in  accusing  silence,  and  his 
head  was  as  immovable  as  if  carved  in  stone.  The 

121 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

other  men,  with  their  averted  eyes,  made  a  curious, 
motionless  tableau  of  futile  and  dumb  resistance 
to  power  which  might  have  been  carved  with  truth 
on  the  face  of  the  rock  from  the  beginning  of  the 
earth. 

122 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  closing  of  Lloyd's  marked,  in  some  inscrutable 
way,  the  close  of  the  first  period  of  Ellen  Brewster's 
childhood.  Looking  back  in  later  years,  she  always 
felt  her  retrospective  thought  strike  a  barrier  there, 
beyond  which  her  images  of  the  past  were  confused. 
Yet  it  was  difficult  to  tell  why  it  was  so,  for  after  the 
first  the  child  could,  it  seemed,  have  realized  no  dif 
ference  in  her  life.  Now  and  then  she  heard  some  of 
that  conversation  characterized  at  once  by  the  con 
fidence  of  wrong  and  injustice,  and  the  logical  doubt 
of  it,  by  solid  reasoning  which,  if  followed  far  enough, 
refuted  itself,  by  keen  and  unanswerable  argument, 
and  the  wildest  and  most  futile  enthusiasm.  But  she 
had  gained  nothing  except  the  conviction  of  the  great 
wrongs  of  the  poor  of  this  earth  and  the  awful  tyranny 
of  the  rich,  of  the  everlasting  moaning  of  Lazarus  at 
the  gates  and  the  cry  for  water  later  on  from  the  depths 
of  the  rich  man's  hell.  Somehow  that  last  never  com 
forted  Ellen;  she  had  no  conception  of  the  joy  of  the 
injured  party  over  righteous  retribution.  She  pitied 
the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  impartially,  yet  all  the  time 
a  spirit  of  fierce  partisanship  with  these  poor  men  was 
strengthening  with  her  growrth,  their  eloquence  over 
their  wrongs  stirred  her  soul,  and  set  her  feet  outside 
her  childhood.  Still,  as  before  said,  there  was  no 
tangible  difference  in  her  daily  life.  The  little  petted 
treasure  of  the  Brewsters  had  all  her  small  luxuries, 
sweets,  and  cushions  of  life,  as  well  after  as  before 
the  closing  of  Lloyd's.  And  the  preparations  for  her 

123 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

aunt's  wedding  went  on  also.  The  sight  of  her  lover 
sleigh-riding  with  her  rival  that  afternoon  had  been 
too  much  for  the  resolution  of  Eva  Loud's  undisciplined 
nature.  She  had  herself  gone  to  Jim  Tenny's  house 
that  evening,  and  called  him  to  account,  to  learn  that  he 
had  seriously  taken  her  resolution  not  to  marry  at 
present  to  proceed  from  a  fear  that  he  would  not  pro 
vide  properly  for  her,  and  that  he  had  in  this  state  of  in 
dignation  been  easily  led  by  the  sight  of  Aggie  Semis's 
pretty  face  in  her  front  door,  as  he  drove  by,  to  stop. 
She  had  told  Jim  that  she  would  marry  him  as  she  had 
agreed  if  he  looked  at  matters  in  that  way,  and  had 
passed  Aggie  Bemis's  window  leaning  on  Jim's  arm 
with  a  side  stare  of  triumph. 

"Be  you  goin'  to  get  married  next  month  after  what 
you  said  this  mornin'?"  her  sisicr  asked,  half  joyfully, 
half  anxiously. 

"Yes,  I  be,"  was  all  Eva  replied,  and  Fanny  stared 
at  her;  she  was  so  purely  normal  in  her  inconsistencj^ 
as  to  seem  almost  the  other  thing. 

The  preparations  for  the  wedding  went  on,  but  Eva 
never  seemed  as  happy  as  she  had  done  before  the 
closing  of  Lloyd's.  Jim  Tenny  could  get  no  more 
work,  and  neither  could  Andrew. 

Fanny  lamented  that  the  shop  had  closed  at  that  time 
of  year,  for  she  had  planned  a  Christmas  tree  of  un 
precedented  splendor  for  Ellen,  but  Mrs.  Zelotes  was 
to  be  depended  upon  as  usual,  and  Andrew  told  his 
wife  to  make  no  difference.  "That  little  thing  ain't 
goin'  to  be  cheated  nohow,"  he  said  one  night  after 
Ellen  had  gone  to  bed  and  his  visiting  companions  of 
the  cutting-room  had  happened  in. 

"I  know  my  children  won't  get  much,"  Joseph 
Atkins  said,  coughing  as  he  spoke;  "they  wouldn't 
if  Lloyd's  hadn't  shut  down.  I  never  see  the  time 
when  I  could  afford  to  make  any  account  of  Christ- 

124 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

mas,  much  as  ever  I  could  manage  a  turkey  Thanks 
giving  day." 

"  The  poor  that  the  Lord  died  for  can't  afford  to  keep 
his  birthday;  it  is  the  rich  that  he's  going  to  cast  into 
outer  darkness,  that  keep  it  for  their  own  ends,  and  it's 
a  blasphemy  and  a  mockery,"  proclaimed  Nahum  Beals. 
He  was  very  excited  that  night,  and  would  often  spring 
to  his  feet  and  stride  across  the  room.  There  was 
another  man  there  that  night,  a  cousin  of  Joseph  Atkins, 
John  Sargent  by  name.  He  had  recently  moved  to 
Rowe,  since  he  had  obtained  work  at  McGuire's,  "  had 
accepted  a  position  in  the  finishing-room  of  Mr.  H.  S. 
McGuire's  factory  in  the  city  of  Rowe/'  as  the  item  in 
the  local  paper  put  it.  He  was  a  young  man,  younger 
than  his  cousin,  but  he  looked  older.  He  had  a  hand 
some  face,  under  the  most  complete  control  as  to  its 
muscles.  When  he  laughed  he  gave  the  impression 
of  the  fixedness  of  merriment  of  a  mask.  He  looked 
keenly  at  Nahum  Beals  with  that  immovable  laugh 
on  his  face,  and  spoke  with  perfectly  good-natured 
sarcasm.  "All  very  well  for  the  string-pieces  of  the 
bridge  from  oppression  to  freedom,"  he  said,  "but  you 
need  some  common-sense  for  the  ties,  or  you'll  slump." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"We  ain't  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  those  old  prophets,  if  they  were  alive  to 
day,  would  have  to  step  down  out  of  their  flaming 
chariots  and  hang  their  mantles  on  the  bushes,  and  in 
stead  of  standing  on  mountain-tops  and  tellin'  their 
enemies  what  rats  they  were,  and  how  they  would  get 
what  they  deserved  later  on,  they  would  have  to  tell 
their  enemies  what  they  wanted  them  to  do  to  better 
matters,  and  make  them  do  it." 

"  Instead  of  standing  by  your  own  strike  in  Greenboro, 
you  quit  and  come  here  to  work  in  McGuire's  the  minute 
you  got  a  chance,"  said  Nahum  Beals,  sullenly,  and 

125 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Sargent  responded,  with  his  unrelaxing  laugh,  "  I  left 
enough  strikers  for  the  situation  in  Greenboro;  don't 
you  worry  about  me." 

"I  think  he  done  quite  right  to  quit  the  strike  if  he 
got  a  chance  to  work,"  Joseph  Atkins  interposed. 
"Folks  have  got  to  look  out  for  themselves,  labor  re 
form  or  no  labor  reform." 

"That's  the  corner-stone  of  labor  reform,  seems  to 
me,"  said  Andrew. 

"Seems  to  me  sometimes  you  talk  like  a  damned 
scab,"  cried  Nahum  Deals,  fiercety,  red  spots  flickering 
in  his  thin  cheeks.  Andrew  looked  at  him,  and  spoke 
with  slow  wrath.  "  Look  here,  Nahum  Beals,"  he  said, 
''you're  in  my  house,  but  I  ain't  goin'  to  stand  no  such 
talk  as  that,  I  can  tell  you." 

John  Sargent  laid  a  pacifically  detaining  hand  on 
Nahum  Beals's  arm  as  he  strode  past  him.  "  Oh,  Lord, 
stop  rampagin'  up  and  down  like  a  wildcat,"  he  said. 
"What  good  do  you  think  you're  doin'  tearin'  and 
shoutin'  and  insultin'  people?  He  ain't  talkiii'  like 
a  scab,  he's  only  talkin'  a  tie  to  your  string-piece." 

"  That's  so,"  said  Joseph  Atkins.  Sargent  boarded 
with  him,  and  the  board  money  was  a  godsend  to  him, 
now  he  was  out  of  work.  John  Sargent  had  fixed  his 
own  price,  and  it  was  an  unheard-of  one  for  such  simple 
fare  as  he  had.  His  weekly  dollars  kept  the  whole 
poor  family  in  food.  But  John  Sargent  was  a  bache 
lor,  and  earning  remarkably  good  wages,  and  Joseph 
Atkins's  ailing  wife,  whom  illness  and  privation  had 
made  unnaturally  grasping  and  ungrateful,  told  her 
cronies  that  it  wasn't  as  if  he  couldn't  afford  it. 

Up-stairs  little  Ellen  lay  in  her  bed,  her  doll  in  her 
arms,  listening  to  the  low  rumble  of  masculine  voice?; 
in  the  room  below.  Her  mother  had  gone  out,  and 
there  were  only  the  men  there.  They  were  smoking, 
and  the  odor  of  their  pipes  floated  up  into  Ellen's  cham- 

126 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ber  through  the  door-cracks.  She  thought  how  her 
grandmother  Brewster  would  sniff  when  she  came  in 
next  day.  She  could  hear  her  saying,  "  Well,  for  my 
part,  if  those  men  couldn't  smoke  their  old  pipes  some 
where  else  besides  in  my  sittin'-room,  I  wouldn't  have 
'em  in  the  house."  But  that  reflection  did  not  trouble 
Ellen  very  long,  and  she  had  never  been  disturbed 
herself  by  the  odor  of  the  pipes.  She  thought  of  them 
insensibly  as  the  usual  atmosphere  when  men  were 
gathered  together  in  any  place  except  the  church.  She 
knew  that  they  were  talking  about  that  old  trouble,  and 
Nahum  Beals's  voice  of  high  wrath  made  her  shrink; 
but,  after  all,  she  was  removed  from  it  all  that  night 
into  a  little  prospective  paradise  of  her  own,  which,  as 
is  the  case  in  childhood,  seemed  to  overgild  her  own 
future  and  all  the  troubles  of  the  world.  Christmas  was 
only  a  week  distant,  she  was  to  have  a  tree,  and  the 
very  next  evening  her  mother  had  promised  to  take 
her  down-town  and  show  her  the  beautiful,  lighted 
Christmas  shops.  She  wondered,  listening  to  that 
rumble  of  discontent  below,  why  grown-up  men  and 
women  ever  fretted  when  they  were  at  liberty  to  go  down 
town  every  evening  when  they  chose  and  look  at  the 
lighted  shops,  for  she  could  still  picture  pure  delight  for 
others  without  envy  or  bitterness. 

The  next  day  the  child  was  radiant ;  she  danced  rather 
than  walked ,  she  could  not  speak  without  a  smile ;  she 
could  eat  nothing,  for  her  happiness  was  so  purely 
spiritual  that  desires  of  the  flesh  were  in  abeyance. 
Her  heart  beat  fast ;  the  constantly  recurring  memory  of 
what  was  about  to  happen  fairly  overwhelmed  her  as 
with  waves  of  delight. 

"If  you  don't  eat  your  supper  you  can't  go,  and 
that's  all  there  is  about  it,"  her  mother  told  her  when 
they  were  seated  at  the  table,  and  Ellen  sat  dreaming 
before  her  toast  and  peach  preserve. 

127 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  must  eat  your  supper,  Ellen,"  Andrew  said, 
anxiously.  Andrew  had  on  his  other  coat,  and  he  had 
shaved,  and  was  going  too,  as  was  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brew- 
ster. 

"  She  'ain't  eat  a  thing  all  day,  she's  so  excited  about 
goin',"  Fanny  said.  "  Now,  Ellen,  you  must  eat  your 
supper,  or  you  can't  go — you'll  be  sick." 

And  Ellen  ate  her  supper,  though  exceeding  joy  as 
well  as  exceeding  woe  can  make  food  lose  its  savor, 
and  toast  and  preserves  were  as  ashes  on  her  tongue 
when  the  very  fragrance  of  coming  happiness  was  in 
her  soul. 

When,  finally,  in  hand  of  her  mother,  while  Andrew 
walked  behind  with  her  grandmother,  she  \vent  towards 
the  lights  of  the  town,  she  had  a  feeling  as  of  wings 
on  her  feet.  However,  she  walked  soberly  enough  with 
wide  eyes  of  amazement  and  delight  at  everything — the 
long,  silver  track  of  the  snowy  road  under  the  light  of 
the  full  moon,  the  slants  of  the  house  roofs  sparkling  with 
crusts  of  crystals,  the  lighted  windows  set  with  house 
plants,  for  the  dwellers  in  the  outskirts  of  Rowe  loved 
house  plants,  and  their  front  windows  bloomed  with  the 
emulative  splendor  of  geraniums  from  fall  to  spring.  She 
saw  behind  them  glimpses  of  lives  and  some  doings  as 
real  as  her  own,  but  mysterious  under  the  locks  of  other 
personalities,  and  therefore  as  full  of  possibilities  of 
preciousness  as  the  sheet  of  morning  dew  over  a  neigh 
bor's  yard;  she  had  often  believed  she  saw  diamonds 
sparkle  in  that,  though  never  in  her  own.  She  had 
proved  it  otherwise  too  often.  So  Ellen,  seeing  through 
a  window  a  little  girl  of  her  own  age  in  a  red  frock, 
straightway  believed  it  to  be  satin  of  the  richest  quality, 
and,  seeing  through  another  window  a  tea-table  spread, 
had  no  doubt  that  the  tin  teapot  was  silver.  A  girl 
with  a  crown  of  yellow  braids  pulled  down  a  curtain, 
and  she  thought  her  as  beautiful  as  an  angel;  but  of 

128 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

all  this  she  said  nothing  at  all,  only  walked  soberly  on, 
holding  fast  to  her  mother's  hand. 

When  they  were  half-way  to  the  shops,  a  door  of  a 
white  house  close  to  the  road  flew  open  and  shut  again 
with  a  bang,  there  was  a  scurry  and  grating  slide  on 
the  front  walk,  then  the  gate  was  thrown  back,  and  a 
boy  dashed  through  with  a  wild  whoop,  just  escap 
ing  contact  with  Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster.  "  You'd  better 
be  careful,"  said  she,  sharply.  "  It  ain't  the  thing  for 
boys  to  come  tearin'  out  of  yards  in  the  evenin'  without 
seein'  where  they  are  goin'." 

The  boy  cast  an  abashed  glance  at  her.  The  street- 
lamp  shone  full  on  his  face,  which  was  round  and  red 
dened  by  the  frosty  winds,  with  an  aimlessly  grinning 
mouth  of  uncertain  youth,  and  black  eyes  with  a  bold 
and  cheerful  outlook  on  the  unknown.  Pie  was  only 
ten,  but  he  was  large  for  his  age.  Ellen,  when  he  looked 
from  her  grandmother  back  at  her,  thought  him  almost 
a  man,  and  then  she  saw  that  he  was  the  boy  who  had 
brought  the  chestnuts  to  her  the  night  when  she  had 
returned  from  her  runaway  excursion.  The  boy  rec 
ognized  her  at  the  same  moment,  and  his  mouth  seemed 
to  gape  wider,  and  a  moist  red  overspread  his  face  down 
to  his  swathing  woollen  scarf.  Then  he  gave  another 
whoop  significant  of  the  extreme  of  nervous  abashed- 
ness  and  the  incipient  defiance  of  his  masculine  estate, 
there  was  a  flourish  of  heels,  followed  by  a  swift  glimmer 
ing  slide  of  steel,  and  he  was  off  trailing  his  sled. 

"  That's  that  Joy  boy  that  brought  Ellen  the  chest 
nuts  that  time,"  Fanny  said.  "Do  you  remember  him, 
Ellen?" 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  replied  Ellen.  The  look  of  the  boy 
in  her  face  had  bewildered  and  confused  her,  without 
her  knowing  the  why  of  it.  It  was  as  if  she  had  spelled 
a  word  in  her  reading-book  whose  meaning  she  could 
not  grasp. 

i  129 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  I  don't  care  who  he  is,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  "  he  'ain't 
no  business  racin'  out  of  gates  that  way,  and  his  folks 
hadn't  ought  to  let  a  boy  no  older  than  that  out  alone 
of  nights." 

They  kept  on,  and  the  boy  apparently  left  them  far 
behind  in  his  career  of  youthful  exuberance,  until  they 
came  to  the  factories.  Andrew  looked  up  at  the  win 
dows  of  Lloj^d's,  dark  except  for  a  faint  glimmer  in  a 
basement  window  from  the  lamp  of  the  solitary  watch 
man,  and  drew  a  heavy  sigh. 

"  It  ain't  as  bad  for  you  as  it  is  for  some,"  his  mother 
said,  sharply,  and  then  she  jumped  aside,  catching  her 
son's  arm  as  the  boy  sprang  out  of  a  covering  shadow 
under  the  wall  of  Lloyd's  and  dashed  before  them  with 
another  wild  wiioop  and  another  glance  of  defiant 
bashfulness  at  Ellen. 

"My  land!  it's  that  boy  again,"  cried  Mrs.  Zelotes. 
"  Here,  you  boy  1 — boj^  !  What's  your  name?" 

"  His  name  is  Granville  Joy,"  Ellen  replied,  unex 
pectedly. 

"Why,  how  did  you  know,  child?"  her  grandmother 
asked.  "  Seems  to  me  he's  got  a  highfalutin'  name 
enough.  Here  you,  Granville — if  that's  your  name — 
don't  you  know  any  better  than  to — "  But  the  boy 
was  gone,  his  sled  creaking  on  the  hard  snow  at  his 
heels,  and  a  faint  whoop  sounded  from  the  distance. 

"I  guess  if  I  had  the  bringin'  up  of  that  boy  there 
wouldn't  be  such  doin's,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  severely. 
"His  mother's  a  pretty  woman,  but  I  don't  believe 
she's  got  much  force.  She  wouldn't  have  given  him 
such  a  name  if  she  had." 

"She  named  him  after  the  town  she  came  from," 
said  Fanny.  "She  told  me  once.  She's  a  real  smart 
woman,  and  she  makes  that  boy  stand  around." 

"She  must;  it  looks  as  if  he  was  standin'  round 
pretty  lively  jest  now,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes.  "Narnin' 

130 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  a  boy  after  a  town!  They'd  better  wait  and  name 
a  town  after  the  boy  if  he  amounts  to  anything." 

"  His  mother  told  me  he  was  goin'  into  the  first  gram 
mar-school  next  year/'  said  Fanny. 

"I  pity  his  teacher/'  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  and  then  she 
recoiled,  for  the  boy  made  another  dart  from  behind  a 
lamp-post,  crossed  their  path,  and  was  off  again. 

"My  land  1"  gasped  Mrs.  Zelotes,  "you  speak  to  him, 
Andrew."  But  Andrew  laughed.  "Might  as  well 
speak  to  a  whirlwind,"  said  he.  "He  ain't  doin'  any 
harm,  mother ;  it's  only  his  boyish  antics.  For  Heaven's 
sake,  let  him  enjoy  himself  while  he  can,  it  won't  be 
long  before  the  grind-mill  in  there  will  get  hold  of  him, 
and  then  he'll  be  sober  enough  to  suit  anybody,"  and 
Andrew  pointed  at  Lloyd's  as  he  spoke. 

"Boys  can  be  boys,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  severely, 
"  and  they  can  have  a  good  time,  but  they  can  behave 
themselves." 

None  of  them  looking  after  that  flying  and  whooping 
figure  ahead  had  the  slightest  idea  of  the  true  situation. 
They  did  not  know  that  the  boy  was  confused  by  the 
fires,  none  the  less  ardent  that  they  were  so  innocent, 
of  a  first  love  for  Ellen ;  that,  ever  since  he  had  seen  her 
little,  fair  face  on  her  aunt's  shoulder  the  day  when  she 
was  found,  it  had  been  even  closer  to  his  heart  than  his 
sled  and  his  jackstones  and  his  ball,  and  his  hope  of 
pudding  for  dinner.  They  did  not  know  that  he  had 
toiled  at  the  wood-pile  of  a  Saturday,  and  run  errands 
after  school,  to  earn  money  to  buy  Christmas  presents 
for  his  mother  and  Ellen ;  that  he  had  at  that  very  min 
ute  in  his  purse  in  the  bottom  of  his  pocket  the  sum  of 
eighty-nine  cents,  mostly  in  coppers,  since  his  wage  was 
generally  payable  in  that  coin,  and  his  pocket  sagged 
arduously  therefrom.  They  did  not  know  that  he  was 
even  then  bound  upon  on  errand  to  the  grocery  store  for 
a  bag  of  flour  to  be  brought  home  on  his  sled,  and  would 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

thereby  swell  his  exchequer  by  another  cent.  They  did 
not  know  what  dawning  chords  of  love,  and  knowledge 
of  love,  that  wild  whoop  expressed ;  and  the  boy  dodged 
and  darted  and  hid,  and  appeared  before  them  all  the 
way  to  the  busy  main  street  of  Rowe ;  and,  after  they 
had  entered  the  great  store  where  the  finest  Christmas 
display  was  held,  he  stood  before  the  window  staring 
at  Ellen  vanishing  in  a  brilliant  vista,  and  whooped 
now  and  then,  regardless  of  public  opinion. 

Ellen,  when  once  she  was  inside  the  store,  forgot 
everything  else.  She  clung  more  tightly  to  her  mother's 
hand,  as  one  will  cling  to  any  wonted  stay  of  love  in 
the  midst  of  strangeness,  even  of  joy,  and  she  saw 
everything  with  eyes  which  photographed  it  upon  her 
very  soul.  At  first  she  had  an  impression  of  a  dazzling 
incoherence  of  splendor,  of  a  blare  as  of  thousands  of 
musical  instruments  all  sounding  different  notes  of 
delight,  of  a  weaving  pattern  of  colors,  too  intricate  to 
master,  of  a  mingled  odor  of  paint  and  varnish,  and 
pine  and  hemlock  boughs,  and  then  she  spelled  out 
the  letters  of  the  details.  She  looked  at  those  counters 
set  with  the  miniature  paraphernalia  of  household  life 
which  give  the  first  sweet  taste  of  domesticity  and 
housekeeping  joys  to  a  little  girl. 

There  were  the  sets  of  dolls'  furniture,  and  the  dolls, 
dishes,  and  there  was  a  counter  with  dolls'  cooking- 
stoves  and  ranges  bristling  with  the  most  delightful 
realism  of  pots  and  pans,  at  which  she  gazed  so  fixedly 
and  breathlessly  that  she  looked  almost  stupid.  Her 
elders  watched  half  in  delight,  half  with  pain,  that 
they  could  not  purchase  everything  at  which  she  looked. 
Mrs.  Zelotes  bought  some  things  surreptitiously,  hiding 
the  parcels  under  her  shawl.  Andrew,  whispering  to  a 
salesman,  asked  the  price  of  a  great  cooking-stove  at 
which  Ellen  looked  long.  When  he  heard  the  amount 
he  sighed.  Fanny  touched  his  arm  comfortingly. 

132 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  There  would  be  no  sense  in  your  buying  that,  if  you  had 
all  the  money  in  creation/'  she  said,  in  a  hushed  voice. 
"There's  a  twenty  -  five  -  cent  one  that's  good  enough. 
I'm  going  to  buy  that  for  her  to-morrow.  She'll  never 
know  the  difference."  But  Andrew  Brewster,  never 
theless,  went  through  the  great,  dazzling  shop  with  his 
heart  full  of  bitterness.  It  seemed  to  him  monstrous  and 
incredible  that  he  had  a  child  as  beautiful  and  altogether 
wonderful  as  that,  and  could  not  buy  the  whole  stock 
for  her  if  she  wanted  it.  He  had  never  in  his  whole  life 
wanted  anything  for  himself  that  he  could  not  have, 
enough  to  give  him  pain,  but  he  wanted  for  his  child 
with  a  longing  that  was  a  passion.  Her  little  desires 
seemed  to  him  the  most  important  and  sacred  needs 
in  the  whole  world.  He  watched  her  with  pity  and 
admiration,  and  shame  at  his  own  impotence  of  love  to 
give  her  all. 

But  Ellen  knew  nothing  of  it.  She  was  radiant. 
She  never  thought  of  wanting  all  those  treasures  further 
than  she  already  had  them.  She  gazed  at  the  wonders 
in  that  department  where  the  toy  animals  were  kept, 
and  which  resembled  a  miniature  menagerie,  the  silence 
broken  by  the  mooing  of  cows,  the  braying  of  donkeys, 
the  whistle  of  canaries,  and  the  roars  of  mock-lions 
when  their  powers  were  invoked  by  the  attendants, 
and  her  ears  drank  in  that  discordant  babel  of  tiny 
mimicry  like  music.  There  was  no  spirit  of  criticism 
in  her.  She  was  utterly  pleased  with  everything. 

When  her  grandmother  held  up  a  toy-horse  and  said 
the  fore-legs  were  too  long,  Ellen  wondered  what  she 
meant.  To  her  mind  it  was  more  like  a  horse  than 
any  real  one  she  had  ever  seen. 

As  she  gazed  at  the  decorations,  the  wreaths,  the 
gauze,  the  tinsel,  and  paper  angels,  suspended  by 
invisible  wires  over  the  counters,  and  all  glittering  and 
shining  and  twinkling  with  light,  a  strong  whiff  of 

133 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

evergreen  fragrance  came  to  her,  and  the  aroma  of  fir- 
balsam,  and  it  was  to  her  the  very  breath  of  ail  the; 
mysterious  joy  and  hitherto  untasted  festivity  of  this 
earth  into  which  she  had  come.  She  felt  deep  in  her 
childish  soul  the  sense  of  a  promise  of  happiness  in  the 
future,  of  which  this  was  a  foretaste.  When  she  went 
into  the  department  where  the  dolls  dwelt,  she  fairly 
turned  pale.  They  swung,  and  sat,  and  lay,  arid  stood, 
as  in  angelic  ranks,  all  smiling  between  shining  fluffs 
of  hair.  It  was  a  chorus  of  smiles,  and  made  the  child's 
heart  fairly  leap.  She  felt  as  if  all  the  dolls  were  smiling 
at  her.  She  clung  fast  to  her  mother's  hand,  and  hid 
her  face  against  her  skirt. 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter,  Ellen?"  Fanny  asked. 
Ellen  looked  up,  and  smiled  timidly  and  confusedly, 
then  at  that  dazzle  of  waxen  faces  and  golden  locks 
above  skirts  of  delicate  pink  and  blue  and  white,  like 
flower  petals. 

"You  never  saw  so  many  dolls  together  before,  did 
you,  Ellen?"  said  Andrew;  then  he  added,  wistfully, 
"There  ain't  one  of  'em  any  bigger  and  prettier  than 
your  own  doll,  be  they,  Ellen?"  And  that,  although 
he  had  never  recovered  from  his  uneasiness  about  that 
mysterious  doll. 

Ellen  had  not  seen  Cynthia  Lennox  since  that  morning 
several  wTeeks  ago  when  she  had  run  away  from  her, 
except  one  glimpse  when  she  was  sleigh-riding.  Now 
all  at  once,  when  they  had  stopped  to  look  at  some 
wonderful  doll-houses,  she  saw  her  face  to  face.  Ellen 
had  been  gazing  with  rapture  at  a  great  doll-house 
completely  furnished,  and  Andrew  had  made  one  of  his 
miserable  side  inquiries  as  to  its  price,  arid  Fanny  had 
said,  quite  loud,  "  Lord,  Andrew,  you  might  just  as 
well  ask  the  price  of  the  store !  You  know  such  a  thing 
as  that  is  out  of  the  question  for  any  child  unless  her 
father  is  rich  as  Norman  Lloyd,"  and  Ellen,  who  had  not 

134 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

noticed  what  they  were  saying,  looked  up,  when  a  faint 
breath  of  violets  smote  her  sense  with  a  quick  memory, 
and  there  was  the  strange  lady  who  had  taken  her 
into  her  house  and  kept  her  and  given  her  the  doll,  the 
strange  lady  whom  the  gentleman  said  might  be  punish 
ed  for  keeping  her  if  people  were  to  know. 

Cynthia  Lennox  went  pale  when,  without  knowing 
what  was  going  to  happen,  she  looked  down  and  saw 
suddenly  the  child's  innocent  face  looking  into  hers. 
She  stood  wavering  in  her  trailing,  fur-lined,  and  softly 
whispering  draperies,  so  marked  and  set  aside  by  her 
grace  and  elegance  and  countenance  of  superiority  and 
proud  calm  that  people  turned  to  look  after  her  more 
than  after  many  a  young  beauty,  and  did  not,  for  a 
second,  know  what  to  say  or  do.  She  had  no  mind  to 
shrink  from  a  recognition  of  the  child;  she  had  no  fear 
of  the  result,  but  there  was  a  distinct  shrinking  at  a 
scene  with  that  flashing-eyed  and  heavy-browed  mother 
of  the  child  in  such  a  place  as  that.  She  would  un 
doubtedly  speak  very  loud.  She  expected  the  volley 
of  recrimination  in  a  high  treble  which  would  follow 
the  announcement  in  that  sweet  little  flute  which  she 
remembered  so  well. 

"  Mamma,  that  is  the  lady  who  kept  me,  and  would 
not  let  me  go  home." 

But  Ellen,  after  a  second's  innocent  and  startled 
regard,  turned  away  with  no  more  recognition  than  if 
she  had  been  a  stranger.  She  turned  her  little  back 
to  her,  and  looked  at  the  doll-house.  A  great  flush 
flamed  over  Cynthia  Lennox's  face,  and  a  qualm  of 
mortal  shame.  She  took  an  impetuous  glide  forward, 
and  was  just  about  to  speak  and  tell  the  truth,  what 
ever  the  consequences,  and  not  be  outdone  in  magna 
nimity  by  that  child,  when  a  young  girl  with  a  sickly 
but  impudent  and  pretty  face  jostled  her  rudely.  The 
utter  pcrtness  of  her  ignorant  youth  knew  no  respect 

135 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

for  even  the  rich  Miss  Cynthia  Lennox.  "Here's 
your  parcel,  lady/'  she  said,  in  her  rough  young  voice, 
its  shrillness  modified  by  hoarseness  from  too  much 
shouting  for  cash  boys  during  this  busy  season,  and 
she  thrust,  with  her  absent  eyes  upon  a  gentleman  com 
ing  towards  her,  a  parcel  into  Cynthia's  hands.  Some 
how  the  touch  of  that  parcel  seemed  to  bring  Cynthia 
to  her  senses.  It  was  a  kodak  which  she  had  been 
purchasing  for  the  little  boy  who  had  lived  with  her,  and 
whom  it  had  almost  broken  her  heart  to  lose.  She 
remembered  what  her  friend  Lyman  Risley  had  said, 
that  it  might  make  trouble  for  others  besides  herself. 
She  took  her  parcel  with  that  involuntary  meekness 
which  the  proudest  learn  before  the  matchless  audacity 
of  youthful  ignorance  when  it  fairly  asserts  itself,  and 
passed  out  of  the  store  to  her  waiting  carriage.  Ellen 
saw  her. 

"  That  was  Cynthia  Lennox,  wasn't  it?"  Fanny  said, 
with  something  like  awe.  "  Wasn't  that  an  elegant 
cloak  she  had  on?  I  guess  it  was  Russian  sable." 

"  I  don't  care  if  it  was,  it  ain't  a  mite  handsomer  than 
my  cape  lined  with  squirrel,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes. 

Ellen  looked  intently  at  a  game  on  the  counter.  It 
was  ten  o'clock  when  Ellen  went  home.  She  had  been 
into  all  the  principal  stores  which  were  decorated  for 
Christmas.  Her  brain  resembled  a  kaleidoscope  as  she 
hurried  along  at  her  mother's  hand.  Every  thought 
seemed  to  whirl  the  disk,  and  new  and  more  dazzling 
combinations  appeared,  but  the  principle  which  under 
lay  the  whole  was  that  of  the  mystery  of  festivity  and 
joy  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  of  which  this  Christmas 
wealth  was  the  key. 

The  Brewsters  had  scarcely  reached  the  factory  neigh 
borhood  when  there  was  a  swift  bound  ahead  of  them 
and  the  familiar  whoop. 

"There's  that  boy  again,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes. 

136 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

She  made  various  remonstrances,  and  even  Andrew, 
when  the  boy  had  passed  his  own  home  in  his  persistent 
dogging  of  them,  called  out  to  him,  as  did  Fanny,  but 
he  was  too  far  ahead  to  hear.  The  boy  followed  them 
quite  to  their  gate,  proceeding  with  wild  spurts  and 
dashes  from  shadow  to  shadow,  and  at  last  reappeared 
from  behind  one  of  the  evergreen  trees  in  the  west  }Tard, 
springing  out  of  its  long  shadow  with  strange  effect. 
He  darted  close  to  Ellen  as  she  passed  in  the  gate,  cram 
med  something  into  her  hand,  and  was  gone.  Andrew 
could  not  catch  him,  though  he  ran  after  him.  "  He 
ran  like  a  rabbit,"  he  said,  coming  breathlessly  into  the 
house,  where  they  were  looking  at  the  treasure  the  boy 
had  thrust  upon  Ellen.  It  was  a  marvel  of  a  patent 
top,  which  the  boy  had  long  desired  to  own.  He  had 
spent  all  his  money  on  it,  and  his  mother  was  cheated 
of  her  Christmas  present,  but  he  had  given,  and  Ellen 
had  received,  her  first  token  of  love. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  next  spring  Ellen  went  to  school.  When  a 
child  who  has  reigned  in  undisputed  sovereignty  at 
home  is  thrust  among  other  children  at  school,  one  of 
two  things  happens :  either  she  is  scorned  and  rebelled 
against,  and  her  little  crown  of  superiority  rolled  in 
the  dust  of  the  common  playground,  or  she  extends 
the  territories  of  her  empire.  Ellen  extended  hers, 
though  involuntarily,  for  there  was  no  conscious 
thirst  for  power  in  her. 

On  her  first  morning  at  school,  she  seated  herself 
at  her  desk  and  looked  forth  from  the  golden  cloud 
of  her  curls,  her  eyes  full  of  innocent  contemplation, 
her  mouth  corners  gravely  drooping.  She  knew  one 
little  girl  who  sat  not  far  from  her.  The  little  girl's 
name  was  Floretta  Vining.  Floretta  was  built  on  the 
scale  of  a  fairy,  with  iiny,  fine,  waxen  features,  a  little 
tossing  mane  of  flaxen  hair,  eyes  a  most  lovelj7  and 
perfect  blue,  with  no  more  depth  in  them  than  in  the 
blue  of  china,  and  an  expression  of  the  sweetest  and 
most  innocent  inanity  and  irresponsibility.  Nobody 
ever  expected  anything  of  this  little  Floretta  Vining. 
She  was  always  a  negative  success.  She  smiled 
around  from  the  foot  of  her  curving  class,  and  never 
had  her  lessons,  but  she  never  disobeyed  the  rules, 
except  that  of  punctualit}-. 

Floretta  was  late  at  school.  She  came  daintily  up 
the  aisle,  two  cheap  bangles  on  one  wrist  slipping  over 
a  slim  hand,  and  tinkling.  Floretta's  mother  had  a 
taste  for  the  cheaply  decorative.  There  was  an  abun- 

138 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

dance  of  coarse  lace  on  Floretta's  frock,  and  she  wore 
a  superfluous  sash  which  was  not  too  fresh.  Floretta 
toed  out  excessively,  her  slender  little  feet  pointing  out 
sharply,  almost  at  right  angles  with  each  other,  and 
Ellen  adinired  her  for  that.  She  watched  her  coming, 
planting  each  foot  as  carefully  and  precisely  as  a  bird, 
her  lace  frills  flouncing  up  and  down,  her  bangles 
jingling,  and  thought  how  very  pretty  she  was. 

Ellen  felt  herself  very  loving  towards  the  teacher 
and  Floretta  Vining.  Floretta  leaned  forward  as 
soon  as  she  was  seated  and  gazed  at  her  with  astonish 
ment,  and  that  deepening  of  amiability  and  general 
sweetness  which  one  can  imagine  in  the  face  of  a  doll 
after  persistent  scrutiny.  Ellen  smiled  decorously, 
for  she  was  not  sure  how  much  smiling  was  permissible 
in  school.  When  she  smiled  guardedly  at  Floretta, 
she  was  conscious  of  another  face  regarding  her,  twisted 
slightly  over  a  shabby  little  shoulder  covered  with  an 
ignominious  blue  stuff,  spotted  and  faded.  This  little 
girl's  wisp  of  brown  braid  was  tied  with  a  shoe-string, 
and  she  looked  poorer  than  any  other  child  in  the 
school,  but  she  had  an  honest  light  in  her  eyes,  and 
Ellen  considered  her  to  be  rather  more  beautiful  than 
Floretta. 

She  was  Maria  Atkins,  Joseph  Atkins's  second  child. 
Ellen  sat  with  her  book  before  her,  and  the  strange, 
new  atmosphere  of  the  school-room  stole  over  her  senses. 
It  was  not  altogether  pleasant,  although  it  was  con 
sidered  that  the  ventilation  was  after  the  most  approved 
modern  system.  She  perceived  a  strong  odor  of  pepper 
mints,  and  Floretta  Vining  was  waving  ostentatiously 
a  coarse  little  pocket  -  handkerchief  scented  with  New- 
mown  Hay.  There  was  also  a  strong  effusion  of  stale 
dinners  and  storm-beaten  woollen  garments,  but  there 
was,  after  all,  that  savor  of  festivity  which  Ellen  was 
apt  to  discover  in  the  new.  She  looked  over  her  book 

139 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

with  utter  content.  In  a  line  with  her,  on  the  boys' 
side,  there  appeared  a  covertly  peeping  face  under  a 
thatch  of  light  hair,  and  Ellen,  influenced  insensibly 
by  the  boy's  shyly  worshipful  eyes,  looked  and  saw 
Granville  Joy.  She  remembered  the  Christmas  top, 
and  blushed  very  pink  without  knowing  why,  and 
flirted  all  her  curls  towards  the  boys'  side. 

Ellen,  from  having  so  little  acquaintance  with  boys, 
had  had  no  very  well-defined  sentiments  towards  them, 
but  now,  on  being  set  apart  with  her  feminine  element, 
and  separated  so  definitely  by  the  middle  aisle  of  the 
school-room,  she  began  to  experience  sensations  both 
of  shyness  and  exclusiveness.  She  did  not  think  the 
boys,  in  their  coarse  clothes,  with  their  cropped  heads, 
half  as  pretty  as  the  girls. 

The  teacher  coming  down  the  aisle  laid  a  caressing 
hand  on  Ellen's  curls,  and  the  child  looked  up  at  her 
with  that  confidence  which  is  exquisite  flattery. 

After  she  had  passed,  Ellen  heard  a  subtle  wrhisper 
somewhere  at  her  back;  it  was  half  audible,  but  its 
meaning  was  entirely  plain.  It  signified  utmost  scorn 
and  satirical  contempt.  It  was  fine-pointed  and  far- 
reaching.  A  number  looked  around.  It  was  as  ex 
pressive  as  a  whole  sentence,  and,  being  as  concen 
trated,  was  fairly  explosive  with  meaning. 

"H'm,  ain't  you  pretty?  Ain't  you  dreadful  pretty, 
little  dolly-pinky-rosy.  H'm,  teacher's  partial.  Ain't 
you  pretty?  Ain't  you  stuck  up?  H'm." 

Ellen,  not  being  used  to  the  school  vernacular,  did 
not  fairly  apprehend  all  this,  and  least  of  all  that  it 
was  directed  towards  herself.  She  cast  a  startled  look 
around,  then  turned  to  her  book.  She  leaned  back  in 
her  seat  and  held  her  book  before  her  face  with  both 
hands,  and  began  to  read,  spelling  out  the  words  noise 
lessly.  All  at  once,  she  felt  a  fine  prick  on  her  head, 
and  threw  back  one  hand  and  turned  quickly.  The 

140 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

little  girl  behind  was  engrossed  in  study,  and  all  Ellen 
could  see  was  the  parting  in  her  thick  black  hair,  for 
her  head  was  supported  by  her  two  hands,  her  elbows 
were  resting  on  her  desk,  and  she  was  whispering  the 
boundaries  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 

Ellen  turned  back  to  her  reading-book,  and  recom 
menced  studying  with  the  painful  faithfulness  of  the 
new  student;  then  came  again  that  small,  fine,  exas 
perating  prick,  and  she  thrust  her  face  around  quickly 
to  see  that  same  faithfully  intent  little  girl. 

Ellen  rubbed  her  head  doubtfully,  and  tried  to  fix 
her  attention  again  upon  her  book,  but  presently  it 
came  again;  a  prick  so  small  and  fine  that  it  strained 
consciousness;  an  infinitesimal  point  of  torture,  and 
this  time  Ellen,  turning  with  a  swift  flirt  of  her  head, 
caught  the  culprit.  It  was  that  faithful  little  girl,  who 
held  a  black-headed  belt-pin  in  her  hand ;  she  had  been 
carefully  separating  one  hair  at  a  time  from  Ellen's 
golden  curls,  and  tweaking  it  out. 

Ellen  looked  at  her  with  a  singular  expression  com 
pounded  of  bewilderment,  of  injury,  of  resentment, 
of  alarm,  and  of  a  readiness  to  accept  it  all  as  a  some 
what  peculiar  advance  towards  good-fellowship  and  a 
merry  understanding.  But  the  expression  on  that 
dark,  somewhat  grimy  little  face,  looking  out  at  her  from 
a  jungle  of  coarse,  black  locks,  was  fairly  impish,  al 
most  malicious.  There  was  not  merriment  in  it  so 
much  as  jibing ;  instead  of  that  soft  regard  and  worship 
ful  admiration  which  Ellen  was  accustomed  to  find 
in  new  eyes,  there  was  resentful  envy. 

Then  Ellen  shrank,  and  bristled  with  defiance  at 
the  same  time,  for  she  had  the  spirit  of  both  the  Brew- 
sters  and  the  Louds  in  her,  in  spite  of  her  delicacy  of 
organization.  She  was  a  fine  instrument,  capable 
of  chords  of  tragedy  as  well  as  angelic  strains.  She 
saw  that  the  little  girl  who  was  treating  her  so  was 

141 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

dressed  very  poorly,  that  her  dress  was  not  only  shabby, 
but  actually  dirt}' ;  that  she,  as  well  as  the  other  girl 
whom  she  noticed,  had  her  braid  tied  with  an  old  shoe 
string,  and  that  a  curious  smell  of  leather  pervaded  her. 
Ellen  continued  to  regard  the  little  girl,  then  suddenly 
she  felt  a  hand  on  her  shoulder,  and  the  teacher,  Miss 
Rebecca  Mitchell,  was  looking  down  at  her.  "  What 
is  the  trouble?"  asked  Miss  Mitchell.  That  look  of 
half-wondering  admiration  to  which  Ellen  was  accus 
tomed  was  in  the  teacher's  eyes,  and  Ellen  again 
thought  her  beautiful. 

One  of  the  first,  though  a  scarcely  acknowledged 
principle  of  beauty,  is  that  of  reflection  of  the  fairness 
of  the  observer.  Ellen  being  as  innocently  self-seeking 
for  love  and  admiration  as  any  young  thing  for  its 
natural  sustenance,  was  quick  to  recognize  it,  though 
she  did  not  understand  that  what  she  saw  was  herself 
in  the  teacher's  eyes,  and  not  the  teacher.  She  gazed 
up  in  that  roseate  face  with  the  wide  mouth  set  in  an 
inverted  bow  of  smile,  curtained,  as  it  were,  with  smooth 
ly  crinkled  auburn  hair  clearly  outlined  against  the 
cheeks,  at  the  palpitating  curve  of  shiny  black -silk 
bosom,  adorned  with  a  festoon  of  heavy  gold  watch- 
chain,  and  thought  that  here  was  love,  and  beauty, 
and  richness,  and  elegance,  and  great  wisdom,  calling 
for  reverence  but  no  fear.  She  answered  not  one  word 
to  the  teacher's  question,  but  continued  to  gaze  at  her 
with  that  look  of  wide-eyed  and  contemplative  regard. 

"  What  is  the  trouble,  Ellen?"  repeated  Miss  Mitchell. 
"Why  were  you  looking  around  so?"  Ellen  said 
nothing.  The  little  girl  behind  had  her  head  bent  over 
her  book  so  low  that  the  sulky  curves  of  her  mouth  did 
not  show.  The  teacher  turned  to  her — "  Abby  Atkins/' 
said  she,  "what  were  you  doing?" 

Abby  Atkins  did  not  raise  her  studious  head.  She 
did  not  seem  to  hear. 

142 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Abby  Atkins/'  said  the  teacher,  sharply,  "answer 
me.  What  were  you  doing?"  Then  the  little  girl 
answered,  with  a  sulky  note,  half  growl,  half  whimper, 
like  some  helpless  but  indomitable  little  trapped  animal, 
"NothinV 

"Ellen,"  said  the  teacher,  and  her  voice  changed 
indescribably.  "What  was  she  doing?"  Ellen  did 
not  answer.  She  looked  up  in  the  teacher's  face,  then 
cast  down  her  eyes  and  sat  there,  her  little  hands 
folded  in  tightly  clinched  fists  in  her  lap,  her  mouth  a 
pink  line  of  resistance.  "Ellen,"  repeated  the  teacher, 
and  she  tried  to  make  her  voice  sharp,  but  in  spite  of 
herself  it  was  caressing.  Her  heart  had  gone  out  to 
the  child  the  moment  she  had  seen  her  enter  the  school 
room.  She  was  as  helpless  before  her  as  before  a  lover. 
She  was  wild  to  catch  her  up  and  caress  her  instead  of 
pestering  her  with  questions.  "  Ellen,  you  must  answer 
me,"  she  said,  but  Ellen  sat  still. 

Half  the  scholars  were  on  their  feet,  reaching  and 
craning  their  necks.  The  teacher  turned  on  them, 
and  there  was  no  lack  of  sharpness  in  her  tone.  "  Sit 
down  this  moment,  every  one  of  you,"  she  called. 
"  Abby  Atkins,  if  there  is  any  more  disturbance,  I 
.shall  know  what  is  at  the  root  of  the  matter.  If  I  see 
you  turning  around  again,  Ellen,  I  shall  insist  upon 
knowing  why."  Then  the  teacher  placed  a  caressing 
hand  upon  Ellen's  yellow  head,  and  passed  down  the 
aisle  to  her  desk. 

Ellen  had  no  more  trouble  during  the  session.  Abby 
Atkins  was  commendably  quiet  and  studious,  and 
when  called  out  to  recitation  made  the  best  one  in  her 
class.  She  was  really  brilliant  in  a  defiant,  reluctant 
fashion.  However,  though  she  did  not  again  disturb 
Ellen's  curls,  she  glowered  at  her  with  furtive  but  un- 
relaxed  hostility  over  her  book.  Especially  a  blue 
ribbon  which  confined  Ellen's  curls  in  a  beautiful  bow 

143 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

fired  her  eyes  of  animosity.  She  looked  hard  at  it,  then 
she  pulled  her  black  braid  over  her  shoulder  and  felt 
of  the  hard  shoe-string  knot,  and  frowned  with  an 
ugly  frown  of  envy  and  bitterest  injury,  and  asked 
herself  the  world-wide  and  world-old  question  as  to 
the  why  of  inequality,  and,  though  it  was  based  on 
such  trivialities  as  blue  ribbons  and  shoe-strings,  it 
was  none  the  less  vital  to  her  mind.  She  would  have 
loved,  have  gloried,  to  pull  off  that  blue  ribbon,  put  it 
on  her  own  black  braid,  and  tie  up  those  yellow  curls 
with  her  own  shoe-string  writh  a  vicious  yank  of  security. 
But  all  the  time  it  was  not  so  much  because  she  wanted 
the  ribbon  as  because  she  did  not  wish  to  be  slighted 
in  the  distribution  of  things.  Abby  Atkins  cared  no 
more  for  personal  ornament  than  a  wild  cat,  but  she 
wanted  her  just  allotment  of  the  booty  of  the  world. 
So  at  recess  she  watched  her  chance.  Ellen  was  sur 
rounded  by  an  admiring  circle  of  big  girls,  gushing 
with  affection.  "Oh,  you  dear  little  thing,"  they  said. 
"Only  look  at  her  beautiful  curls.  Give  me  a  kiss, 
won't  you,  darling?"  Little  reverent  fingers  twined 
Ellen's  golden  curls,  red  apples  were  thrust  forward 
for  her  to  take  bites,  sticky  morsels  of  candy  were  forced 
secretly  into  her  hands.  Abby  Atkins  stood  aloof. 
"You  mean  little  thing,"  one  of  the  big  girls  said  sud 
denly,  catching  hold  of  her  thin  shoulder  and  shaking 
her — "you  mean  little  thing,  I  saw  you." 

"So  did  I,"  said  another  big  girl,  "and  I  was  a  good 
mind  to  tell  on  you." 

"Yes,  you  had  better  look  out,  and  not  plague  that 
dear  little  thing,"  said  the  other. 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself,"  chimed  in 
still  another  big  girl.  "  Only  look  how  pretty  she  is, 
the  little  darling — the  idea  of  your  tormenting  her. 
You  deserve  a  good,  hard  whipping,  Abby  Atkins." 

This  big  girl  was  herself  a  beauty  and  wore  a  fine 

144 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  precise  blue-ribbon  bow,  and  Abby  Atkins  looked 
at  her  with  a  scowl  of  hatred. 

"  She's  an  ugly  little  thing/"  said  the  big  girls  among 
themselves  as  they  went  edging  gently  and  imper 
ceptibly  away  towards  a  knot  of  big  boys,  and  then 
Abby  Atkins's  chance  had  come.  She  advanced  with 
a  spring  upon  Ellen  Brewster,  and  she  pulled  that  blue 
ribbon  off  her  head  so  cruelly  and  fiercely  that  she 
pulled  out  some  of  the  golden  hairs  with  it  and  threw 
it  on  the  ground,  and  stamped  on  it.  Then  she  seized 
Ellen  by  the  shoulders  and  proceeded  to  shake  her  for 
wearing  a  blue  ribbon  when  she  herself  wore  a  shoe 
string,  but  she  reckoned  without  Ellen.  One  would  as 
soon  have  expected  to  meet  fight  in  a  little  child  angel 
as  in  this  Ellen  Brewster,  but  she  did  not  come  of  her 
ancestors  for  nothing. 

Although  she  was  so  daintily  built  that  she  looked 
smaller,  she  was  in  reality  larger  than  the  other  girl, 
and  as  she  straightened  herself  in  her  wrath  she  seemed 
a  head  taller  and  proportionately  broad.  She  tossed 
her  yellow  head,  and  her  face  took  on  an  expression  of 
noble  courage  and  indignation,  but  she  never  said  a 
word.  She  simply  took  Abby  Atkins  by  the  arms  and 
lifted  her  off  her  feet  and  seated  her  on  the  ground. 
Then  she  picked  up  her  blue  ribbon,  and  walked  off,  and 
Abby  scrambled  to  her  feet  and  looked  after  her  with  a 
vanquished  but  untamed  air.  Nobody  had  seen  what 
happened  except  Abby's  younger  sister  Maria  and 
Granville  Joy.  Granville  pressed  stealthily  close  to 
Ellen  as  she  marched  away  and  whispered,  his  face 
blazing,  his  voice  full  of  confidence  and  congratulation, 
"Say,  if  she'd  been  a  boy,  I'd  licked  her  for  you,  and 
you  wouldn't  hev  had  to  tech  her  yourself;"  and  Maria 
walked  up  and  eyed  her  prostrate  but  defiantly  glaring 
sister — "I  ain't  sorry  one  mite,  Abby  Atkins,"  she 
declared — "so  there." 

145 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  go  'long,"  returned  Abby,  struggling  to  her 
feet,  and  shaking  her  small  skirts  energetical!}'. 

"  Your  dress  is  jest  as  wet  as  if  you'd  set  down  in  a 
puddle,  and  you'll  catch  it  when  you  get  home,"  Maria 
said,  pitilessly. 

"I  ain't  afraid." 

"What  made  you  touch  her,  anyhow;  she  hadn't 
done  no  thin'?" 

"If  you  want  to  wear  shoe-strings  \vhen  other  folks 
wear  ribbons,  you  can,"  said  Abby  Atkins.  She  walked 
away,  switching,  with  unabated  dignity  in  the  midst 
of  defeat,  the  draggled  tail  of  her  poor  little  dress.  She 
had  gone  down  like  a  cat ;  she  was  not  in  the  least  hurt 
except  in  her  sense  of  justice;  that  was  jarred  to  a  still 
greater  lack  of  equilibrium.  She  felt  as  if  she  had  been 
floored  by  Providence  in  conjunction  with  a  blue  bow, 
and  her  very  soul  rose  in  futile  rebellion.  But,  curiously 
enough,  her  personal  ire  against  Ellen  vanished. 

At  the  afternoon  recess  she  gave  Ellen  the  sound  half 
of  an  old  red  Baldwin  apple  which  she  had  brought  for 
luncheon,  and  watched  her  bite  into  it,  which  Ellen  did 
readily,  for  she  was  not  a  child  to  cherish  enmity,  with 
an  odd  triumph.  "The  other  half  ain't  fit  to  eat,  it's 
all  wormy,"  said  Abby  Atkins,  flinging  it  away  as 
she  spoke. 

"Then  you  ought  to  have  kept  this,"  Ellen  cried 
out,  holding  towards  her  the  half,  minus  one  little  bite. 
But  Abby  Atkins  shook  her  head  forcibly.  "That 
was  why  I  gave  it  to  you,"  said  she.  "Say,  didn't 
you  never  have  to  tie  up  your  hair  with  a  shoe-string?" 
Ellen  shook  her  head,  looking  at  her  wonderingly. 
Then  with  a  sudden  impulse  she  tore  off  the  blue  ribbon 
from  her  curls.  "Say,  you  take  it,"  she  said,  "my 
mother  won't  care.  I'd  jest  as  lief  wear  the  shoe-string, 
honest." 

"I  don't  want  your  blue  ribbon,"  Abby  returned, 

146 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stoutly ;  "  a  shoe-string  is  a  good  deal  better  to  tie  the 
hair  with.  I  don't  want  your  blue  ribbon;  I  don't  want 
no  blue  ribbon  unless  it's  mine." 

"  It  would  be  yours  if  I  give  it  to  you/ 'Ellen declared, 
with  blue  eyes  of  astonishment  and  consternation  upon 
this  very  strange  little  girl. 

"  No,  it  wouldn't/'  maintained  Abby  Atkins. 

But  it  ended  in  the  two  girls,  with  that  wonderful  and 
inexplicable  adjustment  of  childhood  into  one  groove 
after  harsh  grating  on  different  levels,  walking  off 
together  with  arms  around  each  other's  waist,  and  after 
school  began  Ellen  often  felt  a  soft,  cat-like  pat  on  her 
head,  and  turned  round  with  a  loving  glance  at  Abby 
Atkins. 

Ellen  talked  more  about  Abby  Atkins  than  any  other 
of  the  children  when  she  got  home,  and  while  her  mother 
looked  at  it  all  easity,  her  grandmother  was  doubtful. 
"There's  others  that  I  should  rather  have  Ellen  thick 
with,"  said  she.  "  1  'ain't  nothin'  against  the  Atkinses, 
but  they  can't  have  been  as  well  brought  up  as  some, 
they  have  had  so  little  to  do  with,  and  their  mother's 
been  ailin'  so  long." 

"  Ellen  may  as  well  begin  as  she  can  hold  out,  and  be 
intimate  with  them  that  will  be  intimate  with  her," 
Eva  said,  rather  bitterly.  Eva  was  married  by  this 
time,  and  living  with  Jim  and  his  mother.  She  wore 
in  those  days  an  expression  of  bitterly  defiant  triumph 
and  happiness,  as  of  one  who  has  wrested  his  sweet  from 
fate  under  the  ban  of  the  law,  and  is  determined  to  get 
the  flavor  of  it  though  the  skies  fall.  "  I  suppose  I  did 
wrong  marrying  Jim,"  she  often  told  her  sister,  "but  I 
can't  help  it." 

"Maybe  Jim  will  get  work  before  long,"  her  sister 
would  say,  consolingly. 

"I  have  about  given  up,"  Eva  would  reply.  "I 
guess  Jim  will  have  to  roost  on  a  flour-barrel  at  Mun- 

147 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

sey's  store  the  rest  of  his  days;  but  as  long  as  he  be 
longs  to  me,  it  don't  make  so  much  difference." 

Eva  had  taken  up  an  agency  for  a  cosmetic  which 
was  manufactured  by  a  woman  in  Rowe.  She  had  one 
window  of  the  north  parlor  in  the  Tenny  cottage,  which 
had  been  given  up  to  her  when  she  married  Jim,  filled 
with  the  little  pink  boxes  containing  the  "  Fairy  Cream," 
and  a  great  sign,  but  the  trade  languished.  Both  Eva 
and  Jim  had  tried  in  vain  to  obtain  employment  in  fac 
tories  in  other  towns. 

Lloyd's  had  not  reopened,  although  it  was  April, 
and  Andrew  was  drawing  on  his  savings.  Fanny 
had  surreptitiously  answered  an  advertisement  pur 
porting  to  give  instructions  to  women  as  to  the  earning 
of  large  sums  of  money  at  home,  and  was  engaged  with 
a  stock  of  glass  and  paints  which  she  hurriedly  swept 
out  of  sight  when  any  one's  shadow  passed  the  window, 
and  later  she  found  herself  to  be  the  victim  of  a  small 
swindling  conspiracy,  and  lost  the  dollar  which  she  had 
invested.  But  Ellen  knew  nothing  of  all  this.  She 
lacked  none  of  her  accustomed  necessaries  nor  luxuries, 
and  with  her  school  a  new  life  full  of  keen,  new  savors 
or  relish  began  for  her.  There  were  also  new  affections 
in  it. 

Ellen  was  as  yet  too  young,  and  too  confident  in  love, 
to  have  new  affections  plunge  her  into  anything  but  a 
delightful  sort  of  anti-blossom  tumult.  There  was  no 
suspense,  no  doubt,  no  jealousy,  only  utter  acquiescence 
of  single  -  heartediiess,  admiration,  and  trust.  She 
thought  Abby  Atkins  and  Floretta  Vining  lovely  and 
dependable ;  she  parted  from  them  at  night  without  a 
pang,  and  looked  forward  blissfully  to  the  meeting  next 
morning.  She  also  had  sentiments  equally  peaceful 
and  pronounced,  though  instinctively  more  secret, 
towards  Granville  Joy.  She  used  to  glance  over  tow 
ards  the  boys'  side  and  meet  his  side-long  eyes  without 

148 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

so  much  a  quickening  of  her  pulses  as  a  quickening  of 
her  imagination. 

"I  know  who  your  beau  is,"  Floretta  Vining,  who 
was  in  advance  of  her  years,  said  to  her  once,  and  Ellen 
looked  at  her  with  half-stupid  wonder. 

"  His  first  name  begins  with  a  G  and  his  last  with  a 
J,"  Floretta  tittered,  and  Ellen  continued  to  look 
at  her  with  the  faintest  suspicion  of  a  blush,  because 
she  had  a  feminine  instinct  that  a  blush  was  in  order, 
not  because  she  knew  of  any  reason  for  it. 

"He  is,"  said  Floretta,  with  another  exceedingly 
foolish  giggle.  "  My,  you  are  as  red  as  a  beet." 

"I  ain't  old  enough  to  have  a  beau,"  Ellen  said, 
her  soft  cheeks  becoming  redder,  and  her  baby  face 
all  in  a  tremor. 

"Yes,  you  be,"  Floretta  said,  with  authority,  "be 
cause  you  are  so  pretty,  and  have  got  such  pretty  curls. 
Ben  Simonds  said  the  other  day  you  were  the  prettiest 
girl  in  school." 

"Then  do  you  think  he  is  my  beau,  too?"  asked 
Ellen,  innocently.  But  Floretta  frowned,  and  tittered, 
and  hesitated. 

"He  said  except  one,"  she  faltered  out,  finally. 

"Well,  who  was  that?"  asked  Ellen. 

"How  do  I  know?"  pouted  Floretta.  "Mebbe  it 
was  me,  though  I  don't  think  I'm  so  very  pretty." 

"Then  Ben  Simonds  is  your  beau,"  said  Ellen, 
reflectively. 

"Yes,  I  guess  he  is,"  admitted  Floretta. 

That  night,  amid  much  wonder  and  tender  ridicule, 
Ellen  told  her  mother  and  Aunt  Eva,  and  her  father, 
that  Ben  Simonds  was  Floretta's  beau,  and  Granville 
Joy  was  hers.  But  Andrew  laughed  doubtfully. 

"  I  don't  want  that  little  thing  to  get  such  ideas  into 
her  head  yet  a  while,"  he  told  Fanny  afterwards,  but 
she  only  laughed  at  him,  seeing  nothing  but  the 

149 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

childish  play  of  the  thing;  but  he,  being  a  man,  saw 
deeper. 

However,  Ellen's  fondest  new  love  was  not  for  any 
of  her  little  mates,  but  for  her  school-teacher.  To  her 
the  child's  heart  went  out  in  worship.  All  through 
the  spring  she  offered  her  violets — violets  gathered 
laboriously  after  school  in  the  meadow  back  of  her 
grandmother's  house.  She  used  to  skip  from  hillock  to 
hillock  of  marsh  grass  with  wary  steps,  lest  she  might 
slip  and  wet  her  feet  in  the  meadow  ooze  and  incur 
her  mother's  displeasure,  for  Fanny,  in  spite  of  her  wor 
ship  of  the  child,  could  speak  with  no  uncertain  voice. 
She  pulled  up  handfuls  of  the  flowers,  gleaming  blue  in 
the  dark-green  hollows.  Later  she  carried  roses  from 
the  choice  bush  in  the  yard,  and,  later,  pears  from  her 
grandmother's  tree.  She  used  to  watch  for  Miss  Mitch 
ell  at  her  gate  and  run  to  meet  her,  and  seize  her  hand 
and  walk  at  her  side,  blushing  with  delight.  Miss 
Mitchell  lived  not  far  from  Ellen,  in  a  tidy  white  house 
with  a  handsome  smoke-tree  on  one  side  of  the  front 
walk  and  a  willow  with  upside-down  branches  on  the 
other.  Miss  Mitchell  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
in  this  house,  but  she  had  been  teaching  school  in  a 
distant  town  ever  since  Ellen's  day,  so  they  had  never 
been  acquainted  before  she  went  to  school.  Miss  Mitch 
ell  lived  alone  with  her  mother,  who  was  an  old  friend 
of  Mrs.  Zelotcs.  Ellen  privately  thought  her  rather 
better  -  looking  than  her  own  grandmother,  though 
her  admiration  was  based  upon  wholly  sentimental 
reasons.  Old  Mrs.  Mitchell  might  have  earned  more 
money  in  a  museum  of  freaks  than  her  daughter  in  a 
district  school.  She  was  a  mountain  of  rotundity,  a 
conjunction  of  palpitating  spheres,  but  the  soul  that 
dwelt  in  this  painfully  ponderous  body  was  as  mellow 
with  affection  and  kindliness  as  a  ripe  pear,  and  the 
voice  that  proceeded  from  her  ever-smiling  lips  was  a 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

hoarse  and  dove-like  coo  of  love.  Ellen  at  first  started  a 
little  aghast  at  this  gigantic  fleshliness,  this  general 
slough  and  slump  of  outline,  this  insistency  of  re 
pellent  curves,  and  then  the  old  woman  spoke  and 
thrust  out  a  great,  soft  hand,  and  the  heart  of  the  child 
overleaped  her  artistic  sense  and  her  reason,  and  she 
thought  old  Mrs.  Mitchell  beautiful.  Mrs.  Mitchell  nev 
er  failed  to  regale  her  with  a  superior  sort  of  cooky, 
and  often  with  a  covert  peppermint,  and  that  although 
the  Mitchells  were  not  well  off.  The  old  place  was 
mortgaged,  and  Miss  Mitchell  had  hard  wrork  to  pay 
the  interest.  Ellen  had  the  vaguest  ideas  about  the 
mortgage,  and  was  half  inclined  to  think  it  might  be  a 
disfiguring  patch  in  the  plastering  of  the  sitting-room, 
which  hung  down  in  an  unsightly  fashion  with  a  dis 
closure  of  hairy  edges,  and  threatened  danger  to  the 
heads  underneath. 

Often  of  a  Saturday  afternoon  Ellen  went  to  visit 
Miss  Mitchell  and  her  mother,  and  really  preferred 
them  to  friends  of  her  own  age.  Miss  Mitchell  had  a 
store  of  superannuated  paper  dolls  which  dated  from 
her  own  childhood.  Their  quaint  costumes,  and  old- 
fashioned  coiffures,  and  simpers  were  of  overwhelm 
ing  interest  to  Ellen.  Even  at  that  early  age  she  had  a 
perception  of  the  advantages  of  an  atmosphere  to  art, 
and  even  to  the  affections.  Without  understanding  it, 
she  loved  those  obsolete  paper-dolls  and  those  women 
of  former  generations  better  because  they  gave  her 
breathing-scope  for  her  imagination.  She  could  love 
Abby  Atkins  and  Floretta  Vining  at  one  bite,  as  it 
were,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it,  but  she  could  sit  and 
ponder  and  dream  over  Miss  Mitchell  and  her  mother, 
and  see  whole  vistas  of  them  in  receding  mirrors  of 
affection. 

As  for  the  teacher  and  her  mother,  they  simply  adored 
the  child—as  indeed  everybod3T  did.  She  continued  at 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  first  school  for  a  year,  which  was  one  of  the  hardest 
financially  ever  experienced  in  Rowe.  Norman  Lloyd 
during  all  that  time  did  not  reopen  his  factory,  and  in 
the  autumn  two  others  shut  down.  The  streets  were 
full  of  the  discontented  ranks  of  impotent  labor,  and 
all  the  public  buildings  were  props  for  the  weary  shoul 
ders  of  the  unemployed.  On  pleasant  days  the  sunny 
sides  of  the  vacant  factories,  especially,  furnished  set 
tings  for  lines  of  scowling  faces  of  misery. 

This  atmosphere  affected  Ellen  more  than  any  one 
realized,  since  the  personal  bearing  of  it  was  kept  from 
her.  She  did  not  know  that  her  father  was  drawing 
upon  his  precious  savings  for  daily  r  ->eds,  she  did 
not  know  how  her  aunt  Eva  and  her  uncle  Jim  were 
getting  into  greater  difficulties  every  day,  but  she  was 
too  sensitive  not  to  be  aware  of  disturbances  which 
were  not  in  direct  contact  with  herself.  She  never 
forgot  what  she  had  overheard  that  night  Lloyd's 
had  shut  down ;  it  was  always  like  a  blot  upon  the  face 
of  her  happy  consciousness  of  life.  She  often  over 
heard,  as  then,  those  loud,  dissenting  voices  of  her  father 
and  his  friends  in  the  sitting-room,  after  she  had  gone 
to  bed ;  and  then,  too,  Abby  Atkins,  who  was  not  spared 
any  knowledge  of  hardship,  told  her  a  good  deal.  "  It's 
awful  the  wray  them  rich  folks  treat  us,"  said  Abby 
Atkins.  "  They  own  the  shops  and  everything,  and 
take  all  the  money,  and  let  our  folks  do  all  the 
work.  It's  awful.  But  then,"  continued  Abby  Atkins, 
comf9rtingly,  "your  father  has  got  money  saved  in 
the  bank,  and  he  owns  his  house,  so  you  can  get  along 
if  he  don't  have  work.  My  father  'ain't  got  any,  and 
he's  got  the  old-fashioned  consumption,  and  he  coughs, 
and  it  takes  money  for  his  medicine.  Then  mother's 
sick  a  good  deal  too,  and  has  to  have  medicine.  We 
have  to  have  more  medicine  than  most  anything  else, 
and  we  hardly  ever  have  any  pie  or  cake,  and  it's  all  the 

152 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

fault  of  them  rich  folks."  Abby  Atkins  wound  up 
with  a  tragic  climax  and  a  fierce  roll  of  her  black  eyes. 

That  evening  Ellen  went  in  to  see  her  grandmother, 
and  was  presented  with  some  cookies,  which  she  did 
not  eat. 

"Why  don't  you  eat  them?"  Mrs.  Zelotes  asked. 

"Can  I  have  them  to  do  just  what  I  want  to  with?" 
asked  Ellen. 

"  What  on  earth  do  you  \vant  to  do  with  a  cooky 
except  eat  it?"  Ellen  blushed;  she  had  a  shamed- 
faced  feeling  before  a  contemplated  generosity. 

"  W'hat  do  you  want  to  do  with  them  except  eat  them?" 
her  grandmother  asked,  severely. 

"Abby  Atlyins  don't  have  any  cookies  'cause  her 
father's  out  oi  work,"  said  Ellen,  abashedly. 

"  Did  that  Atkins  girl  ask  you  to  bring  her  cookies?" 

"No,  ma'am." 

"  You  can  do  jest  what  you  are  a  mind  to  with  'em," 
Mrs.  Zelotes  said,  abruptly. 

Ellen  never  knew  why  her  grandmother  insisted 
upon  her  drinking  a  little  glass  of  very  nice  and  very 
spicy  cordial  before  she  went  home,  but  the  truth  was, 
that  Mrs.  Zelotes  thought  the  child  so  angelic  in  this 
disposition  to  give  up  the  cookies  which  she  loved  to 
her  little  friend  that  she  was  straightway  alarmed  and 
thought  her  too  good  to  live. 

The  next  day  she  told  Fanny,  and  said  to  her,  with 
her  old  face  stern  with  anxiety,  that  the  child  was  lookin' 
real  pindlin',  and  Ellen  had  to  take  bitters  for  a  month 
afterwards  because  she  gave  the  cookies  to  Abby  Atkins. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IN  all  growth  there  is  emulation  and  striving  for 
precedence  between  the  spiritual  and  the  physical, 
and  this  very  emulation  may  determine  the  rate  of 
progression  of  the  whole.  Sometimes  the  one,  some 
times  the  other,  may  be  in  advance,  but  all  the  time 
the  tendency  is  towards  the  distant  goal.  Sometimes 
the  two  keep  abreast,  and  then  there  is  the  greatest 
harmony  in  speed.  In  Ellen  Brewster  at  twelve  and 
fifteen  the  spiritual  outstripped  the  physical,  as  is 
often  the  case.  Her  eyes  grew  intense  and  hollow 
with  reflection  under  knitting  brows,  her  thin  shoulders 
stooped  like  those  of  a  sage  bent  with  study  and  con 
templation.  She  was  slender  to  emaciation ;  her  clothes 
hung  loosely  over  her  form,  which  seemed  as  sexless 
as  a  lily-stem ;  indeed,  her  body  seemed  only  made  for 
the  head,  which  was  flower-like  and  charming,  but  al 
most  painful  in  its  delicacy,  and  with  such  weight  of 
innocent  pondering  upon  the  unknown  conditions 
of  things  in  which  she  found  herself.  At  times,  of 
course,  there  were  ebullitions  of  youthful  spirit,  and 
the  child  was  as  inconsequent  as  a  kitten.  At  those 
times  {she  was  neither  child  nor  woman;  she  was  an 
anomalous  thing  made  up  not  so  much  of  actualities 
as  of  instincts.  She  romped  with  her  mates  as  unseen 
and  uncomprehended  of  herself  as  any  young  animal, 
but  the  flame  of  her  striving  spirit  made  everything 
full  of  unread  meaning. 

Ellen  was  accounted  a  most  remarkable  scholar. 
She  had  left  Miss  Mitchell's  school,  and  was  in  one 

154 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  a  higher  grade.  At  fifteen  she  entered  the  high- 
school  and  had  a  master. 

Andrew  was  growing  old  fast  in  those  days,  though 
not  so  old  as  to  y ears.  Though  he  was  far  from  old, 
his  hair  was  gray,  his  back  bent.  He  moved  with 
a  weary  shuffle.  The  men  in  the  shop  began  to  eye 
him  furtively.  "Andrew  Brewster  will  get  fired  next," 
they  said.  "  The  boss  'ain't  no  use  for  men  with  the 
first  snap  gone."  Indeed,  Andrew  was  constantly 
given  jobs  of  lower  grades,  which  did  not  pay  so  well. 
Whenever  the  force  was  reduced  on  account  of  dulness 
in  trade,  Andrew  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  laid  aside  on 
waiting  orders  in  the  regular  army  of  toil.  On  one  of 
these  occasions,  in  the  spring  after  Ellen  was  fifteen, 
his  first  fit  of  recklessness  seized  him.  One  night, 
after  loafing  a  week,  he  came  home  with  fever  spots  in 
his  cheeks  and  a  curiously  bright,  strained  look  in 
his  eyes.  Fanny  gazed  sharply  at  him  across  the  sup 
per-table.  Finally  she  laid  down  her  knife  and  fork, 
rested  her  elbows  on  the  table,  and  fixed  her  eyescom- 
mandingly  upon  him.  "Andrew  Brewster,  what  is 
the  matter?"  said  she.  Ellen  turned  her  flower-like 
face  towards  her  father,  who  took  a  swallow  of  tea  with 
out  saying  a  word,  though  he  shuffled  his  feet  uneasily. 
"Andrew,  you  answer  me,"  repeated  Fanny. 

"There  ain't  anything  the  matter,"  answered  An 
drew,  with  a  strange  sullemiess  for  him. 

"  There  is,  too.  Now,  Andrew  Bre\vster,  I  ain't 
goin'  to  be  put  off.  I  know  you're  on  the  shelf  on  ac 
count  of  hard  times,  so  it  ain't  that.  It's  something 
new.  Now  I  want  to  know  what  it  is." 

"It  ain't  anything." 

"Yes,  it  is.  Andrew,  you  ought  to  tell  me.  You 
know  I  ain't  afraid  to  bear  anything  that  you  have  to 
bear,  and  Ellen  is  getting  old  enough  now,  so  she  can 
understand,  and  she  can't  always  be  spared.  She'd 

155 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

better  get  a  little  knowledge  of  hardships  while  she  has 
us  to  help  her  bear  'em." 

"This  ain't  a  hardship,  and  there  ain't  anything  to 
spare,  Ellen/'  said  Andrew7;  and  he  laughed  with  a 
hilarity  totally  unlike  him. 

That  was  all  Fanny  could  get  out  of  him,  but  she 
was  half  reassured.  She  told  Eva  that  she  didn't 
believe  but  he  had  been  buying  some  Christmas  present 
that  he  knew  was  extravagant  for  Ellen,  and  was  afraid 
to  tell  her  because  he  knew  she  \vould  scold.  But 
Andrew  had  not  been  buying  Christmas  presents,  but 
speculating  in  mining  stocks.  He  had  resisted  the 
temptation  long.  Year  in  and  year  out  he  had  heard 
the  talk  right  and  left  in  the  shop,  on  the  street,  and  at 
the  store  of  an  evening.  "I'll  give  you  a  point,"  he 
had  heard  one  say  to  another  during  a  discussion  as  to 
prices  and  dividends.  He  had  heard  it  all  described 
as  a  short  cross-cut  over  the  fields  of  hard  labor  to  \vealth 
and  comfort,  and  he  had  kept  his  face  straight  ahead 
in  his  narrow  track  of  caution  and  hereditary  instincts 
until  then.  "  The  savings  bank  is  good  enough  for 
me/'  he  used  to  say;  "that's  where  my  father  kept  his 
money.  I  don't  know  anything  about  your  stocks. 
I'd  rather  have  a  little  and  have  it  safe."  The  men 
could  not  reason  him  out  of  his  position,  not  even  when 
Billy  Monroe  made  fifteen  hundred  dollars  on  a  Colo 
rado  mine  which  had  cost  him  fifteen  cents  per  share, 
and  left  the  shop,  and  drove  a  fast  horse  in  a  Goddard 
buggy. 

It  was  even  reported  that  fifteen  hundred  was  fif 
teen  thousand,  but  Andrew  was  proof  against  this 
brilliant  loadstar  of  success,  though  many  of  his  mates 
followed  it  afar,  just  before  the  shares  dropped  below 
par. 

Jim  Tenny  went  with  the  rest.  "Tell  you  what 
'tis,  Andrew,  old  man/'  he  said,  clapping  Andrew 

156 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

on  the  shoulder  as  they  were  going  out  of  the  shop  one 
night,  "you'd  better  go  in  too." 

"The  savings-bank  is  good  enough  for  me,"  said 
Andrew,  with  his  gentle  doggedness. 

"You  can  buy  a  trotter,"  urged  Jim. 

"  I  never  was  much  on  trotters,"  replied  Andrew. 

"  I  ain't  going  to  walk  home  many  times  more,  you 
bet,"  Jim  said  to  Eva  when  he  got  home,  and  then  he 
bent  back  her  tensely  set  face  and  kissed  it.  Eva  was 
crocheting  hoods  for  fifteen  cents  apiece  for  a  neighbor 
ing  woman  who  was  a  padrone  on  a  small  scale,  hav 
ing  taken  a  large  order  from  a  dealer  for  \vhich  she 
realized  twenty  cents  apiece,  and  employed  all  the 
women  in  the  neighborhood  to  do  the  work. 

"  Why  not?"  said  she. 

"Oh,"  said  Jim,  gayly,  "I've  bought  some  of  that 
'Golden  Hope'  mining  stock.  Billy  Monroe  has  just 
made  fifteen  thousand  on  it,  and  I'll  make  as  much  in 
a  week  or  two." 

"  Oh,  Jim,  you  'ain't  taken  all  the  money  out  of  the 
bank?" 

"Don't  you  worry,  old  girl,"  replied  Jim.  "I  guess 
you'll  liiid  I  can  take  care  of  you  yet." 

But  the  stock  went  down,  and  Jim's  little  venture 
with  it. 

"Guess  you  were  about  right,  old  man,"  he  said  to 
Andrew. 

Andrew  was  rather  looked  up  to  for  his  superior 
caution  and  sagacity.  He  \vas  continually  congrat 
ulated  upon  it.  "Savings-banks  are  good  enough 
for  me,"  he  kept  repeating.  But  that  was  four  years 
ago,  and  now  his  turn  had  come;  the  contagion  of 
speculation  had  struck  him  at  last.  That  was  the  way 
with  Lloyd's  failing  employes. 

Andrew  kept  his  stock  certificate  in  a  little,  tin,  trunk- 
shaped  box  which  had  belonged  to  his  father.  It  had 

157 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

a  key  and  a  tiny  padlock,  and  he  had  always  stored 
in  it  the  deed  of  his  house,  his  savings-bank  book,  and 
his  insurance  policy.  He  carried  the  key  in  his  pocket. 
Fanny  never  opened  the  box,  or  had  any  curiosity 
about  it,  believing  ihat  she  was  acquainted  with  its 
contents;  but  now  when,  on  coming  unexpectedly 
into  the  bedroom  —  the  box  was  alwaj-s  kept  at  the 
head  of  the  bed — she  heard  a  rattle  of  papers,  and 
caught  Andrew  locking  the  box  with  a  confused  air, 
she  began  to  suspect  something.  She  began  to  look 
hard  at  the  box,  to  take  it  up  and  shake  it  when  her 
husband  was  away.  Fanny  was  crocheting  hoods 
as  well  as  Eva.  Ellen  wished  to  learn,  but  her  mother 
would  not  allow  that.  "You've  got  enough  to  do  to 
study  your  lessons,"  she  said.  Andrew  watched  his 
wife  crochet  with  ill-concealed  impatience. 

"I  ain't  goin'  to  have  you  do  that  long,"  he  said — 
"workin'  at  that  rate  for  no  more  money.  That  Mrs. 
William  Pendergrass  that  lets  out  these  hoods  is  as 
bad  as  any  factory  boss  in  the  country." 

"Well,  she  got  the  chance,"  said  Fanny,  "and  they 
won't  let  out  the  wrork  except  that  way;  the}^  can  get 
it  done  so  much  cheaper." 

"Well,  you  sha'n't  have  it,  anyhow,"  said  Andrew, 
smiling  mysteriously. 

"Why,  you  ain't  goin'  to  work  again,  be  you,  An 
drew?"^ 

"You  wait." 

"Well,  don't  you  talk  the  way  poor  Jim  did.  Eva 
wasn't  going  to  crochet  any  more  hoods,  and  now 
Jim's  out  of  work  again.  Eva  told  me  yesterday  that 
she  didn't  know  where  the  money  was  comin'  from. 
Jim's  mother  owns  the  place,  and  it  ain't  worth  much, 
anyhow,  and  they  can't  take  it  from  her  in  her  life 
time,  even  if  ?he  was  willing  to  let  it  go.  Eva  said  she 
was  goin'  to  try  again  for  work  herself  in  the  shop. 

158 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

She  thought  maybe  there  might  be  some  kind  of  a  job 
she  could  get.  Don't  you  talk  like  Jim  did  about  his 
good-for-nothin'  mining  stock.  I've  been  glad  enough 
that  you  had  sense  enough  to  keep  what  little  we  had 
where  'twas  safe." 

"Ain't  it  most  time  for  Ellen  to  be  comin'  home?" 
asked  Andrew,  to  turn  the  conversation,  as  he  felt  some 
what  guilty  and  uncomfortable,  though  his  eyes  were 
jubilant.  He  had  very  little  doubt  about  the  success 
of  his  venture.  As  it  is  with  a  man  who  yields  to  love 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  it  was  with  Andrew  in  his 
tardy  subjection  to  the  hazards  of  fortune.  He  was  a 
much  more  devoted  slave  than  those  who  had  long  wrooed 
her.  He  had  always  taken  nothing  but  the  principal 
newspaper  published  in  Rowe,  but  now  he  subscribed 
to  a  Boston  paper,  the  one  which  had  the  fullest  finan 
cial  column,  though  Fanny  exclaimed  at  his  extrava 
gance. 

Along  in  midsummer,  in  the  midst  of  Ellen's  vaca 
tion,  the  mining  stock  dropped  fast  a  point  or  more  a 
day.  Andrew's  heart  began  to  sink,  though  he  was 
far  from  losing  hope.  He  used  to  talk  it  over  with 
the  men  who  advised  him  to  buy,  and  come  home  forti 
fied. 

All  he  had  to  do  was  to  be  patient;  the  fall  meant 
nothing  wrong  with  the  mine,  only  the  wrangle  of 
speculators.  "  It's  like  a  football,  first  on  one  side, 
and  then  on  the  other,"  said  the  man,  "  but  the  football's 
there  all  the  same,  and  if  it's  that  you  want,  you're 
all  right." 

One  night  when  Nahum  Beals  and  Atkins  and  John 
Sargent  were  in,  Andrew  repeated  this  wisdom,  con 
cealing  the  fact  of  its  personal  application.  He  was 
anxious  to  have  some  confirmation. 

"I  suppose  it's  about  so,"  he  said. 

Then  John  Sargent  spoke  up.  "No,  it  is  not  so," 

159 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

he  said — "that  is,  not  in  many  cases.  There  isn't 
any  football — that's  the  trouble.  There's  nothing 
but  the  money;  a  lot  of  fools  have  paid  for  it  when  it 
never  existed  out  of  their  imagination." 

"About  so/ 'said  Nahuni  Beals.  Andrew  and  Atkins 
exchanged  glances.  Atkins  was  at  once  sympathizing 
and  triumphant. 

"  Lots  of  those  things  appear  to  be  doing  well,  and  to 
be  all  right,"  said  Andrew,  uneasily.  "The  directors 
keep  saying  that  they  are  in  a  prosperous  condition, 
even  if  the  stock  drops."  lie  almost  betrayed  himself. 

John  Sargent  laughed  that  curious,  inflexible  laugh 
of  his.  "Lord,  I  know  all  about  that,"  said  he.  "I 
had  some  once.  First  one  thing  and  then  another 
came  up  to  hinder  the  \vorking  of  the  mine  and  the 
payments  of  dividends.  First  there  wrasn't  any  water, 
an  unprecedented  dry  season  in  those  parts,  oldest 
inhabitants  for  evidence.  Then  there  was  too  much 
water,  no  way  to  mine  except  they  emploj^ed  profes 
sional  divers,  everything  under  water.  Then  the  trans 
portation  was  to  pay ;  then,  when  that  was  remedied, 
the  ore  didn't  come  out  in  shape  to  transport  in  the 
rough  and  had  to  be  worked  up  on  the  premises,  and  new 
mills  had  to  be  built  and  new  machinery  put  in,  and 
a  few  little  Irish  dividends  were  collected  for  that.  Then 
when  they  got  the  mills  up  and  the  machinery  in,  they 
struck  another  kind  of  ore  that  ought  to  be  transported ; 
then  there  came  a  landslide  and  carried  half  the  road 
into  a  canon.  So  it  went  on,  one  thing  and  another. 
If  ever  that  darned  mine  had  got  into  working  order, 
right  kind  of  ore,  water  enough  and  not  too  much, 
roads  and  machinery  all  right,  and  everything  swim 
ming,  the  Day  of  Judgment  would  have  come." 

"Did  you  ever  get  anything  out  of  it?"  inquired 
Andrew. 

"Anything  out  of  it?"  repeated  the  other.  "Yes. 

160 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

I  got  enough  worldly  wisdom  never  to  buy  any  more 
mining  stock,  after  I  had  paid  assessments  on  it  for 
two  years  and  the  whole  thing  went  to  pieces. ' ' 

"It  may  come  up  yet,"  said  Andrew. 

"There's  nothing  to  come  up,"  said  John  Sargent. 
He  had  been  away  from  Rowe  a  year,  but  had  just 
returned,  and  was  again  boarding  with  Atkins,  and  all 
the  family  lived  on  his  board  money.  Andrew  and 
Nahum  Deals  were  smoking  pipes.  Andrew  gently, 
like  a  philosopher,  who  smokes  that  he  may  dream; 
Nahum  with  furious  jets  and  frequent  removals  of  his 
pipe  for  scowling  speeches.  John  Sargent  did  not 
smoke  at  all.  He  had  left  off  cigars  first,  then  even  his 
pipe.  He  gave  the  money  which  he  saved  thereby 
to  Mrs.  Atkins  as  a  bonus  on  his  board  money. 

The  lamp  burned  dimly  in  the  blue  fog  of  tobacco 
smoke,  and  the  windows  where  the  curtains  were  not 
drawn  were  blanks  of  silvery  moonlight.  Ellen  sat 
on  the  doorstep  outside  and  heard  the  talk.  She  did 
not  understand  it,  nor  take  much  interest  in  it.  Their 
minds  were  fixed  upon  the  way  of  living,  and  hers  upon 
life  itself.  She  could  bring  her  simplicity  to  bear  upon 
the  world-old  question  of  riches  and  poverty  and  labor, 
but  this  temporal  adjunct  of  stocks  and  markets  was 
as  yet  beyond  her.  Her  mother  had  gone  to  her  aunt 
Eva's  and  she  sat  alone  out  in  the  wide  mystery  of  the 
summer  night,  watching  the  lovely  shift  of  radiance 
and  shadows,  as  she  might  have  watched  the  play  of  a 
kaleidoscope,  seeing  the  beauty  of  the  new  combina 
tions,  and  seeing  without  comprehending  the  unit 
which  governed  them  all.  The  night  was  full  of  cries 
of  insistent  life  and  growth,  of  birds  and  insects,  of  calls 
of  children,  and  now  and  then  the  far-away  roar  of 
railroad  trains.  It  was  nearly  midsummer.  The  year 
was  almost  at  its  height,  but  had  not  passed  it.  Growth 
and  bloom  was  still  in  the  ascendant,  and  had  not  yet 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

attained  that  maturity  of  perfection  bej-ond  which   is 
the  slope  of  death. 

Everywhere  about  her  were  the  revolutions  of  those 
unseen  wheels  of  nature  whose  immortal  trend  is  tow 
ards  the  completion  of  time,  and  whose  momentum  can 
overlap  the  grave;  and  the  child  was  within  them  and 
swept  onward  with  the  perfecting  flowers,  and  the 
ripening  fruit,  and  the  insects  which  were  feeling  their 
wings;  and  all  unconsciously,  in  a  moment  as  it  were, 
she  unfolded  a  little  farther  towards  her  own  hej'day 
of  bloom.  Suddenly  from  those  heights  of  the  primitive 
and  the  eternal  upon  which  a  child  starts  and  where 
she  still  lingered  she  saw  her  future  before  her,  shining 
with  new  lights,  and  a  wonderful  conviction  of  bliss 
to  come  was  over  her.  It  was  that  conviction  which 
comes  at  times  to  all  unconquered  souls,  and  which  has 
the  very  essence  of  truth  in  it,  since  it  overleaps  the 
darkness  of  life  that  lies  between  them  and  that  bliss. 
Suddenly  Ellen  felt  that  she  was  born  to  great  hap 
piness,  and  all  that  was  to  come  wras  towards  that  end. 
Her  heart  beat  loud  in  her  ears.  There  \vas  a  whip- 
poorwill  calling  in  some  trees  to  the  left;  the  moon  was 
dim  under  a  golden  dapple  of  clouds.  She  could  not 
feel  her  hands  or  her  feet;  she  seemed  to  feel  nothing 
except  her  soul. 

Then  she  heard,  loud  and  sweet  and  clear,  a  boy's 
whistle,  one  of  the  popular  tunes  of  the  day.  It  came 
nearer  and  nearer,  and  it  was  in  the  same  key  with  the 
child's  thoughts  and  dreams.  Then  she  saw  a  slender 
figure  dark  against  the  moonlight  stop  at  a  fence,  and 
she  jumped  up  and  ran  towards  it  with  no  hesitation 
through  the  dewy  grass;  and  it  was  the  boy,  Granville 
Joy.  He  stood  looking  at  her.  He  had  a  handsome, 
eager  face,  and  Ellen  looked  at  him,  her  lips  parted, 
her  face  like  a  lily  in  the  white  light. 

"Hulloo/'  said  the  boy. 

162 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Hulloo,"  Ellen  responded,  faintly. 

Graiiville  extended  one  rough,  brown,  boyish  hand 
over  the  fence,  and  Ellen  laid  her  little,  soft  hand  in  it. 
He  pulled  her  gently  close,  then  Ellen  lifted  her  face, 
and  the  boy  bent  his,  and  the  two  kissed  each  other 
over  the  fence.  Then  the  boy  went  on  down  the  street, 
but  he  did  not  whistle,  and  Ellen  went  back  to  the  door 
step,  and,  looking  about  to  be  sure  that  none  of  the  men 
in  the  sitting-room  saw,  pulled  off  one  little  shoe  and 
drew  forth  a  sprig  of  southernwood,  or  boy's-love, 
which  was  crushed  under  her  foot. 

That  day  Floretta  Vining  had  told  her  that  if  she 
would  put  a  sprig  of  boy's-lovc  in  her  shoe,  the  very 
first  boy  she  met  would  be  the  one  she  was  going  to 
marry ;  and  Ellen,  who  was  passing  from  one  grade  of 
school  to  another,  had  tried  it. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  high -school  master  was  a  distant  relative  of 
the  Lloyd's,  through  whom  he  had  obtained  the  position. 
One  evening  when  he  was  taking  tea  with  them  at 
Cynthia  Lennox's,  he  spoke  of  Ellen.  "  I  have  one 
really  remarkable  scholar,"  he  said,  with  a  curious 
air  of  self-gratulation,  as  if  he  were  principally  re 
sponsible  for  it;  "her  name  is  Brewster — Ellen  Brew- 
ster." 

"Good  land!  That  must  be  the  child  that  ran  away 
five  or  six  years  ago,  and  all  the  town  up  in  arms  over 
it,"  said  Mrs.  Norman  Lloyd.  "Don't  you  remember, 
Cynthia?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Cynthia,  and  continued  pouring  tea. 
Cynthia  was  very  little  changed.  In  some  faces  time 
seems  to  engrave  lines  delicately,  once  for  all,  and 
then  lay  by.  She  was  rather  more  charming  now  than 
when  one  had  looked  at  her  with  any  expectancy  of 
youth,  since  there  was  now  no  sense  of  disappoint 
ment. 

"  I  remember  that,"  said  Norman  Lloyd.  "  The  child 
would  never  tell  where  she  had  been.  A  curious  case." 

"Well,"  said  the  school-master,  "leaving  that  child 
ish  episode  out  of  the  question,  she  has  a  really  re 
markable  mind.  If  she  were  a  boy,  I  should  advise  a 
thorough  education  and  a  profession.  I  should  as  it  is, 
if  her  family  were  able  to  bear  the  expense.  She  has 
that  intuitive  order  of  mind  which  is  wonderful  enough, 
though  not,  after  all,  so  rare  in  a  girl ;  but  in  addition 
she  has  the  logical,  which,  according  to  my  experience, 

164 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

is  almost  unknown  in  a  woman.  She  ought  to  have  an 
education." 

"But/'  said  Rislcy,  "what  is  the  use  of  educating 
that  unfortunate  child?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"What  I  say.  What  is  the  use?  There  she  is  in 
her  sphere  of  life,  the  daughter  of  a  factory  operative, 
in  all  probability  in  after-years  to  be  the  wife  of  one  and 
the  mother  of  others.  Nothing  but  a  rich  marriage  can 
save  her,  and  that  she  is  not  likely  to  make.  Milk 
maids  are  more  likely  to  make  rich  marriages  than 
factory  girls ;  there  is  a  certain  savor  of  romance  about 
milk,  and  the  dewy  meadows,  and  the  breath  of  kine, 
but  a  shoe  factory  is  brutally  realistic  and  illusionary. 
Now,  why  do  you  want  to  increase  the  poor  child's 
horizon  farther  than  her  little  feet  can  carry  her?  Fit 
her  to  be  a  good  female  soldier  in  the  ranks  of  labor, 
to  be  a  good  wife  and  mother  to  the  makers  of  shoes, 
to  wash  and  iron  their  uniforms  of  toil,  to  cook  well 
the  food  which  affords  them  the  requisite  nourishment 
to  make  shoes,  to  appreciate  book-lore,  which  is  a  pleas 
ure  and  a  profit  to  the  makers  of  shoes;  possibly  in 
the  non-event  of  marriage  she  will  make  shoes  herself. 
The  system  of  education  in  our  schools  is  all  wrong. 
It  is  both  senseless  and  futile.  Look  at  the  children 
filing  past  to  school,  and  look  at  their  fathers,  and  their 
mothers  too,  filing  past  to  the  factory.  Look  at  their 
present,  and  look  at  their  future.  And  look  at  the 
trash  taught  them  in  their  text-books — trash  from  its 
utter  dissociation  with  their  lives.  You  might  as 
well  teach  a  Zulu  lace-work,  instead  of  the  use  of  the 
assagai." 

"Now  look  here,  Mr.  Risley,"  said  the  school-master, 
his  face  flushing,  "  is  not — I  beg  your  pardon,  of  course — 
this  view  of  yours  a  little  narrow  and  ultra-conserva 
tive?  You  do  not  want  to  establish  a  permanent  fac- 

165 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

tory- operative  class  in  this  country,  do  you?  That 
is  what  your  theory  would  ultimately  tend  towards. 
Ought  not  these  children  be  given  their  chance  to  rise 
in  the  ranks;  ought  they  to  be  condemned  to  tread  in 
the  .same  path  as  their  fathers?" 

"I  would  have  those  little  paths  wrhich  intersect 
every  unoccupied  field  in  this  locality  worn  by  the 
feet  of  these  men  and  their  children  after  them  unto 
the  third  and  fourth  generation/'  said  Risley.  "If 
not,  where  is  our  skilled  labor?" 

"Oh,  Mr.  Risley,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd,  anxiously,  "you 
wouldn't  want  all  those  dear  little  children  to  work 
as  hard  as  their  fathers,  and  not  do  any  better,  would 
youT' 

"  If  they  don't,  who  is  going  to  make  our  shoes,  dear 
Mrs.  Lloyd?"  asked  Risley. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  and  the  school-master  stared  at  him,  and 
Lloyd  laughed  his  low,  almost  mirthless  laugh. 

"Don't  you  know,  Edward,"  he  said,  "that  Mr. 
Risley  is  not  in  earnest,  and  speaks  with  the  deadly 
intent  of  an  anarchist  with  a  bomb  in  his  bag?  lie  is 
the  most  out-and-out  radical  in  the  country.  If  there 
were  a  strike,  and  I  did  not  yield  to  the  demands  of  the 
oppressed,  and  imported  foreign  labor,  I  don't  know 
that  my  life  would  be  safe  from  him." 

"Then  you  do  approve  of  a  higher  education?" 
asked  the  school-master,  while  Mrs.  Lloyd  stared  from 
one  to  the  other  in  bewilderment. 

"Yes,  if  we  and  our  posterity  have  to  go  barefoot," 
said  Risley,  laughing  out  with  a  sudden  undertone 
of  seriousness. 

"  I  suppose  eve^body  could  get  accustomed  to  going 
barefoot  after  a  while,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd.  "Do  you 
suppose  that  dear  little  thing  was  barefooted  when 
she  ran  awajT,  C3Tithia?" 

Risley  answered  as  if  he  had  been  addressed.  "I 

1 66 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

can  vouch  for  the  fact  that  she  was  not,  Mrs.  Lloyd," 
he  said.  "  They  would  sooner  have  walked  on  red-hot 
ploughshares  themselves  than  let  her." 

"Her  father  is  getting  quite  an  old  man,"  Norman 
Lloyd  said,  with  no  apparent  relevancy,  as  if  he  were 
talking  to  himself. 

All  the  time  Cynthia  Lennox  had  been  quietly  sitting 
at  the  head  of  the  table.  When  the  rest  of  the  com 
pany  had  gone,  and  she  and  Risley  were  alone,  seated  in 
the  drawing-room  before  the  parlor  fire,  for  it  was  a 
chilly  day,  she  turned  her  fair,  worn  face  towards  him 
on  the  crimson  velvet  of  her  chair.  "Do  you  know 
why  I  did  not  speak  and  tell  them  where  the  child  was 
that  time?"  she  asked. 

"  Because  of  your  own  good  sense?" 

"No;  because  of  you." 

He  looked  at  her  adoringly.  She  was  older  than  he, 
her  beauty  rather  recorded  than  still  evident  on  her 
face ;  she  had  been  to  him  from  the  first  like  a  fair,  for 
bidden  flower  behind  a  wall  of  prohibition,  but  nothing 
could  alter  his  habit  of  loving  her. 

"  Yes,"  said  she.  "  It  was  more  on  your  account  than 
on  my  own;  confession  would  be  good  for  the  soul. 
The  secret  has  always  rankled  in  my  pride.  I  would 
much  rather  defy  opinion  than  fly  before  it.  But  I 
know  that  you  would  mind.  However,  there  was  an 
other  reason." 

"What?" 

She  hesitated  a  little  and  colored,  even  laughed  a 
little,  embarrassed  laugh  which  was  foreign  to  her. 
"Well,  Lyman,"  said  she,  finally,  "one  reason  why  I 
did  not  speak  was  that  I  see  my  way  clear  to  making 
up  to  that  child  and  her  parents  for  any  wrong  which 
I  may  have  done  them  by  causing  them  a  few  hours' 
anxiety.  When  she  has  finished  the  high -school 
I  mean  to  send  her  to  college." 

167 


CHAPTER  XV 

WHEN  Ellen  was  about  sixteen,  in  her  second  year 
at  the  high-school,  her  own  family  never  looked  at  her 
without  a  slight  shock  of  wonder,  as  before  the  un 
expected.  Her  mates,  being  themselves  in  the  transi 
tion  state,  received  her  unquestioningly  as  a  fellow- 
traveller,  and  colored  like  themselves  with  the  new 
lights  of  the  journey.  But  Ellen's  father  and  mother 
and  grandmother  never  ceased  regarding  her  with  as 
tonishment  and  admiration  and  something  like  alarm. 
While  they  regarded  Ellen  with  the  utmost  pride,  they 
still  privately  regretted  this  perfection  of  bloom  which 
was  the  forerunner  of  independence  of  the  parent  stalk 
— at  least,  Andrew  did.  Andrew  had  grown  older  and 
more  careworn ;  his  mine  had  not  yet  paid  any  dividends, 
but  he  had  scattering  jobs  of  work,  and  with  his  wife's 
assistance  had  managed  to  rub  along,  and  his  secret 
was  still  safe. 

One  day  in  February  there  was  a  half  -  holiday. 
Lloyd's  was  shut  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  for  his  brother 
in  St.  Louis  was  dead,  and  had  been  brought  to  Rowe 
to  be  buried,  and  his  funeral  was  at  two  o'clock. 

"Coin'  to  the  funeral,  old  man?"  one  of  Andrew's 
fellow-workmen  had  asked,  jostling  him  as  he  went 
out  of  the  shop  at  noon.  Before  Andrew  could  answer, 
another  voice  broke  in  fiercely.  It  belonged  to  Joseph 
Atkins,  who  was  ghastly  that  day. 

"I  ain't  goin'  to  no  funerals,"  he  said;  "guess  they 
won't  shut  up  shop  for  mine."  Then  he  coughed. 
His  daughter  Abby,  who  had  been  working  in  the 

168 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

factory  for  some  time  then,  pressed  close  behind  her 
father,  and  the  expression  in  her  face  was  an  echo  of 
his. 

"  When  I  strike,  that's  what  I'm  going  to  strike  for — 
to  have  the  shop  shut  up  the  day  of  my  funeral/'  said 
she;  and  the  remark  had  a  ghastly  flippancy,  con 
tradicted  by  her  intense  manner.  A  laugh  went  around, 
and  a  young  fellow  with  a  handsome,  unshaven  face 
caught  her  by  the  arm. 

"You'd  better  strike  to  have  the  shop  shut  up  the 
da57  you're  married,"  said  he;  but  Abby  flung  away 
from  him. 

"  I'll  thank  you  to  let  me  alone,  Tom  Hardy,"  she  said, 
with  a  snap;  and  the  men  laughed  harder. 

Abby  was  attractive  to  men  in  spite  of  her  smallness 
and  leanness  and  incisiveness  of  manner.  She  was 
called  mighty  smart  and  dry,  which  was  the  shop 
synonym  for  witty,  and  her  favors,  possibly  because 
she  never  granted  them,  were  accounted  valuable.  Abby 
Atkins  had  more  admirers  than  many  a  girl  who  was 
prettier  and  presumably  more  winning  in  every  way, 
and  could  have  married  twice  to  their  once.  But  Abby 
had  no  wish  for  a  lover.  "  I've  got  all  I  can  do  to  earn 
my  own  living  and  the  living  of  them  that  belong  to 
me,"  said  she. 

That  afternoon  Andrew  Brewster  stayed  at  home. 
After  dinner  Eva  Tenny  and  her  little  girl  came  in, 
and  Ellen  went  down  street  on  an  errand. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  Brewster  was  crossing  her  yard  to  her 
son's  house  when  she  saw  Ellen  passing,  and  paused 
to  gaze  at  her  with  that  superb  pride  which  pertains  to 
self  and  is  yet  superior  to  it.  It  was  the  idealized  pride 
of  her  own  youth.  When  she  proceeded  again  against 
the  February  gusts,  it  was  with  an  unconscious  aping 
of  her  granddaughter's  freedom  of  gait.  Mrs.  Zelotes 
wore  an  old  red  cashmere  scarf  crossed  over  her  bosom; 

169 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

she  held  up  her  black  skirts  in  front,  and  they  trailed 
pointedly  in  the  rear;  she  also  stood  well  back  on  her 
heels,  and  when  she  paused  in  the  wind-swept  yard 
presented  a  curious  likeness  to  an  old  robin  pausing 
for  reconnoitre.  Fanny  and  Eva  Tenny  in  the  next 
house  saw  her  coming. 

"  Look  at  her  holding  up  her  dress  in  front  and  letting 
it  drag  in  the  back,"  said  Eva.  "  It  always  seemed  to 
me  there  was  somethin'  wrong  about  any  woman  that 
held  up  her  dress  in  front  and  let  it  drag  behind/' 

Eva  retained  all  the  coarse  beauty  of  her  youth, 
but  lines  of  unalterable  hardness  were  fixed  on  her 
forehead  and  at  her  mouth  corners,  and  the  fierce  flush 
in  her  cheeks  was  as  set  as  paint.  Her  beauty  had 
endured  the  siege;  no  guns  of  mishaps  could  affect  it, 
but  that  charm  of  evanescence  which  awakens  tender 
ness  was  gone.  Jim  Tenny 's  affection  seemed  to  be 
waning,  and  Eva  looked  at  herself  in  the  glass  even 
when  bedecked  with  tawdry  finery,  and  owned  that  she 
did  not  wonder.  She  strained  up  her  hair  into  the 
latest  perkiness  of  twist,  and  crimped  it,  and  curled 
her  feathers,  and  tied  her  ribbons  not  as  much  in  hope 
as  in  a  stern  determination  to  do  her  part  towards  the 
furbishing  of  her  faded  star  of  attraction.  "Jim  don't 
act  as  if  he  thought  so  much  of  me,  an'  I  dun 'no'  as 
I  wonder,"  she  told  her  sister. 

Fanny  looked  at  her  critically.  "You  mean  you 
ain't  so  good-lookin'  as  you  used  to  be?"  said  she. 

Eva  nodded. 

"Well,  if  that  is  all  men  care  for  us,"  said  Fanny. 

"  It  ain't,"  said  Eva,  "  only  it's  the  key  to  it.  It's 
like  losin'  the  key  and  not  bein'  able  to  get  in  the  door 
in  consequence." 

"It  wa'n't  my  husband's  key,"  said  Fanny,  with  a 
glance  at  her  own  face,  faded  as  to  feature  and  bloom, 
but  intensified  as  to  love  and  daily  duty,  like  that 

170 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  a  dog  sharpened  to  one  faithfulness  of  exist 
ence. 

"Andrew  ain't  Jim/"  said  Eva,  shortly. 

"I  know  he  ain't/'  Fanny  assented,  with  emphasis. 

"But  I  wouldn't  swap  off  my  husband  for  a  dozen 
of  yours,"  said  Eva. 

"  Well,  I  wouldn't  swap  off  mine  for  a  thousand  of 
yours/'  returned  Fanny,  sharply;  and  there  might  have 
been  one  of  the  old-time  tussles  between  the  sisters 
had  not  Eva's  violent,  half -bitter  sense  of  humor  averted 
it.  She  broke  into  a  hard  laugh. 

"Good  Lord,"  she  said,  "I  dim 'no'  as  I  should  want 
a  thousand  like  Jim.  Seems  to  me  it  would  be  con 
siderable  care." 

Fanny  began  to  speak,  but  checked  herself.  She 
had  heard  rumors  regarding  Jim  Tenny  of  late  and 
had  flown  fiercely  with  denial  at  the  woman  who  told 
her,  and  had  not  repeated  them  to  her  sister. 

She  was  thinking  how  she  had  heard  that  Jim  had 
been  seen  driving  in  Wenham  with  Aggie  Morse  several 
times  lately.  Aggie  Morse  had  been  Aggie  Bemis, 
Jim's  old  sweetheart.  She  had  married  a  well-to-do 
merchant  in  Wenham,  who  died  six  months  before  and 
left  her  with  considerable  property.  It  was  her  own 
smart  little  turn-out  in  which  she  had  been  seen  with 
Jim. 

Eva  was  working  in  the  shop,  and  Jim  had  been 
out  of  employment  for  nearly  a  year,  and  living  on 
his  wife.  There  was  a  demand  for  girls  and  not  for 
men  just  then,  so  Jim  loafed.  His  old  mother  cared 
for  the  house  as  well  as  she  was  able,  and  Eva  did  the 
rest  nights  and  mornings.  At  first  Jim  had  tried  to 
help  about  the  house-work,  but  Eva  had  interfered. 

"It  ain't  a  man's  work,"  said  she.  "Your  mother 
can  leave  the  hard  part  of  it  till  I  get  home."  Eva 
used  to  put  the  money  she  earned  surreptitiously  into 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  husband's  pockets  that  he  might  not  feel  his  manly 
pride  injured,  but  she  defeated  her  own  ends  by  her 
very  solicitude.  Jim  Tenny  began  to  reason  that  his 
wife  saw  his  shame  and  ignominious  helplessness, 
else  she  would  not  have  been  so  anxious  to  cover  it. 
The  stoop  of  discouragement  which  Eva  used  to  fear 
for  his  shoulders  did  not  come,  but,  instead,  something 
\vorse — the  defiant  set-back  of  recklessness.  He  took 
his  wife's  earnings  and  despised  himself.  Whenever 
he  paid  a  bill,  he  was  sure  the  men  in  the  store  said, 
the  minute  his  back  was  turned,  "It's  his  wife 's  money 
that  paid  for  that."  He  took  to  loafing  on  sunny 
corners,  and  eying  the  passers-by  with  the  blank  im 
pudence  of  regard  of  those  outside  the  current  of  life. 
When  his  wife  passed  by  on  her  way  from  the  shop 
he  nodded  to  her  as  if  she  were  a  stranger,  and  pres 
ently  followed  her  home  at  a  distance.  He  would 
not  be  seen  on  the  street  with  her  if  he  could  avoid  it. 
If  by  any  chance  when  he  was  standing  on  his  corner 
of  idleness  his  little  girl  came  past,  he  melted  away 
imperceptibly.  He  could  not  bear  it  that  the  child 
should  see  him  standing  there  in  that  company  of 
futility  and  openly  avowed  inadequacy.  The  child 
was  a  keen-eyed,  slender  little  girl,  resembling  neither 
father  nor  mother,  but  looking  rather  like  her  paternal 
grandmother,  who  was  a  fair,  attenuated  woman,  with 
an  intelligence  which  had  sharpened  on  herself  for 
want  of  anything  more  legitimate,  and  worn  her  out 
by  the  unnatural  friction.  The  little  Amabel,  for  Eva 
had  been  romantic  in  the  naming  of  her  child,  was 
an  old-fashioned-looking  child  in  spite  of  Eva's  careful 
decoration  of  the  little  figure  in  the  best  childish  finery 
which  she  could  muster. 

Little  Amabel  was  reading  a  child's  book  at  an 
other  window.  WThen  Mrs.  Zelotes  entered  she  eyed 
her  with  the  sharpness  and  inscrutable  conclusions 

172 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

therefrom  of  a  kitten,  then  turned  a  leaf  in  her 
book. 

When  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  greeted  her  daughter-in- 
law  and  Eva,  she  looked  with  disapproval  at  Amabel. 

"When  I  was  a  little  girl  1  should  have  been  pun 
ished  if  I  hadn't  got  up  and  curtsied  and  said  good- 
afternoon  when  company  came  in,"  she  remarked, 
severely. 

Amabel  was  not  a  favorite  outside  of  her  own  family. 
People  used  to  stare  aghast  at  her  unexpected  ques 
tions  and  demands  delivered  in  a  shrill  clarion  as  from 
some  summit  of  childish  wisdom,  and  they  said  she 
\vas  a  queer  child.  She  yielded  always  to  command 
from  utter  helplessness,  but  the  why  of  obedience  was 
strongly  alert  within  her.  The  child  might  have 
been  in  some  subtle  and  uncanny  fashion  the  offspring 
of  her  age  and  generation  instead  of  her  natural  parents, 
she  was  so  unlike  either  of  them,  and  so  much  a  prod 
uct  of  the  times,  with  her  meekness  and  slavishness 
of  weakness  and  futility,  and  her  unquenchable  and 
unconquerable  vitality  of  dissent. 

Ellen  adored  the  little  Amabel.  Presently,  when 
she  returned  from  her  errand  down-town,  she  cried  out 
with  delight  when  she  saw  her;  and  the  child  ran  to 
meet  her,  and  clung  to  her,  with  her  flaxen  head  snug 
gled  close  to  her  cheek.  Ellen  caught  the  child  up, 
seated  herself,  and  sat  cuddling  her  as  she  used  to 
cuddle  her  doll. 

"You  dear  little  thing!"  she  murmured,  "you  dear 
little  thing!  You  did  come  to  see  Ellen,  didn't  you?" 
And  the  child  gazed  up  in  the  young  girl's  face  with 
a  rapt  expression.  Nothing  can  express  the  admira 
tion,  which  is  almost  as  unquestionable  as  worship, 
of  a  very  little  girl  for  a  big  one.  Amabel  loved  her 
mother  with  a  rather  unusual  intensity  for  a  child, 
but  Ellen  was  what  she  herself  wrould  be  when  she 

173 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

was  grown  up.  Through  Ellen  her  love  of  self  and 
her  ambition  budded  into  blossom.  Ellen  could  do 
nothing  wrong  because  she  did  what  she  herself  would 
do  when  she  was  grown.  She  never  questioned  Ellen 
for  her  reasons. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  kept  looking  at  the  two,  with  pride  in 
Ellen  and  disapproval  of  her  caresses  of  the  child. 
"Seems  to  me  you  might  speak  to  your  own  folks  as 
well  as  to  have  no  eyes  for  anybody  but  that  child/'  she 
said,  finally. 

"Why,  grandma,  I  spoke  to  you  just  a  little  while 
ago,"  returned  Ellen.  "You  know  I  saw  you  just  a 
few  minutes  before  I  went  down-town."  Ellen  straight 
ened  the  child  on  her  knees,  and  began  to  try  to  twist 
her  soft,  straight  flaxen  locks  into  curls.  Andrew 
lounged  in  from  the  kitchen  and  sat  down  and  regarded 
Ellen  fondly.  The  girl's  cheeks  were  a  splendid  color 
from  her  walk  in  the  cold  wind,  her  hair  around  her 
temples  caught  the  light  from  the  window,  and  seemed 
to  wreathe  her  head  with  a  yellow  flame.  She  tossed 
the  child  about  with  lithe  young  arms,  whose  every 
motion  suggested  reserves  of  tender  strength.  Ellen 
was  more  beautiful  than  she  had  ever  been  before, 
and  yet  something  was  gone  from  her  face,  though 
only  temporarily,  since  the  lines  for  the  vanished  mean 
ing  wras  still  there.  All  the  introspection  and  dreami 
ness  and  poetry  of  her  face  were  gone,  for  the  girl  was, 
for  the  time,  overbalanced  on  the  physical  side  of  her 
life.  The  jo37  of  existence  for  itself  alone  was  intoxicat 
ing  her.  The  innocent  frivolities  of  her  sex  had  seized 
her  too,  and  the  instincts  which  had  not  yet  reached 
her  brain  nor  gone  farther  than  her  bounding  pulses 
of  youth.  "Ellen  is  getting  real  fond  of  dress,"  Fan 
ny  often  said  to  Andrew.  He  only  laughed  at  that. 
"  Well,  pretty  birds  like  pretty  feathers,  and  no  won 
der,"  said  he.  But  he  did  not  laugh  when  Fanny 

174 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

added  that  Ellen  seemed  to  think  more  about  the 
boys  than  she  used  to.  There  was  scarcely  a  boy 
in  the  high  -  school  who  was  not  Ellen's  admirer. 
It  was  a  curious  happening  in  those  days  when 
Ellen  was  herself  in  much  less  degree  the  stuff  of 
which  dreams  are  made  than  she  had  been  and 
would  be  thereafter,  that  she  was  the  object  of  so 
many.  Every  morning  when  she  entered  the  school 
room  she  was  reflected  in  a  glorious  multiple  of  ideals 
in  no  one  could  tell  how  many  boyish  hearts.  Flo- 
retta  Vining  began  to  imitate  her,  and  kept  close  to 
Ellen  with  supremest  diplomacy,  that  she  might  there 
by  catch  some  of  the  crumbs  of  attention  which  fell 
from  Ellen's  full  table.  Often  when  some  happy  boy 
had  secured  a  short  monopoly  of  Ellen,  his  rival  took 
up  with  Floretta,  and  she  was  content,  being  one  of 
those  purely  feminine  things  who  have  no  pride  when 
the  sweets  of  life  are  concerned.  Floretta  dressed  her 
hair  like  Ellen's,  and  tied  her  neck-ribbons  the  same 
way;  she  held  her  head  like  her,  she  talked  like  her, 
except  when  the  two  girls  were  absolutely  alone;  then 
she  sometimes  relapsed  suddenly,  to  Ellen's  bewilder 
ment,  into  her  own  ways,  and  her  blue  eyes  took  on  an 
expression  as  near  animosity  as  her  ingratiating  politic 
nature  could  admit. 

Ellen  did  not  affiliate  as  much  with  Floretta  as  with 
Maria  Atkins.  Abby  had  gone  to  work  in  the  shop, 
and  so  Ellen  did  not  see  so  much  of  her.  Maria  was  not 
as  much  a  favorite  with  the  boys  as  she  had  been  since 
they  had  passed  and  not  yet  returned  to  that  stage 
when  feminine  comradeship  satisfies;  so  Ellen  used 
to  confide  in  her  with  a  surety  of  sympathy  and  no  con 
tention.  Once,  when  the  girls  were  sleeping  together, 
Ellen  made  a  stupendous  revelation  to  Maria,  having 
first  bound  her  to  inviolable  secrecy.  "I  love  a  boy," 
said  she,  holding  Maria's  little  arm  tightly. 

175 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"I  know  who,"  said  Maria,  with  a  hushed  voice. 

"lie  kissed  me  once,  and  then  I  knew  it,"  said  Ellen. 

"Well,  I  guess  he  loves  you,"  said  Maria.  Ellen 
shivered  and  drew  a  fluttering  sigh  of  assent.  Then 
the  two  girls  lay  in  each  other's  arms,  looking  at  the 
moonlight  which  streamed  in  through  the  window. 
God  knew  in  what  realms  of  pure  romance,  and  of  pas 
sion  so  sublimated  by  innocence  that  no  tinge  of  earth- 
liness  remained,  the  two  wandered  in  their  dreams. 

At  last,  that  afternoon  in  February  Ellen  put  down 
little  Amabel  and  got  out  her  needle-work.  She  was 
making  a  lace  neck-tie  for  her  own  adornment.  She 
showed  it  to  her  grandmother  at  her  mother's  command. 
"It's  real  pretty,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes.  "Ellen  takes 
after  the  Brewsters;  they  were  always  handy  with 
their  needles." 

"Can  uncle  sew?"  asked  little  Amabel,  suddenly, 
from  her  corner,  in  a  tone  big  with  wonder. 

Eva  and  the  others  chuckled,  but  Mrs.  Zelotes  eyed 
the  child  severely.  "Little  girls  shouldn't  ask  silly 
questions,"  said  she. 

Andrew  passed  his  hand  with  a  rough  caress  over 
the  small  flaxen  head.  "  Uncle  Andrew  can't  sew 
anything  but  shoes,"  said  he. 

Little  Amabel's  question  had  aroused  in  Mrs.  Zelotes 
a  carping  spirit  even  against  Ellen.  Presently  she 
turned  to  her.  "I  heard  something  about  you,"  said 
she.  "  I  want  to  know  if  it  is  true.  I  heard  that  you 
were  walking  home  from  school  with  that  Joy  boy  one 
day  last  week."  Ellen  looked  at  her  grandmother 
without  flinching,  though  the  pink  was  over  her  face 
and  neck. 

"Yes'm,  I  did,"  said  she. 

"Well,  I  think  it's  about  time  it  was  put  a  stop  to," 
said  Mrs.  Zelotes.  "That  Joy  boy!" 

Then  Fanny  lost  her  temper.  "I  can  manage  my 

176 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

own  daughter,  Grandma  Brewster,"  said  she,  "and 
I'll  thank  you  to  attend  to  your  own  affairs." 

"You  don't  seem  to  know  enough  to  manage  her/' 
retorted  Mrs.  Zelotes,  "  if  you  let  her  go  traipsin'  round 
with  that  Joy  boy." 

The  warfare  waged  high  for  a  time.  Andrew  with 
drew  to  the  kitchen.  Ellen  took  little  Amabel  up  in 
her  own  chamber  and  showed  her  her  beautiful  doll, 
which  looked  not  a  day  older,  so  carefully  had  she 
been  cherished,  than  when  she  first  had  her.  Ellen 
felt  both  resentment  and  shame,  and  also  a  fierce  dawn 
ing  of  partisanship  towards  Granville  Joy.  "Why 
should  my  grandmother  speak  of  him  so  scornfully?" 
she  asked  herself.  " He  is  a  real  good  boy." 

That  night  was  very  cold,  a  night  full  of  fierce  white 
glitter  of  frost  and  moonlight,  and  raging  with  a  tur 
bulence  of  winds.  Ellen  lay  awake  listening  to  them. 
Presently  between  the  whistle  of  the  wind  she  heard 
another,  a  familiar  pipe  from  a  boyish  throat.  She 
sprang  out  of  bed  and  peeped  from  her  window,  and 
there  was  a  dark,  slight  figure  out  in  the  yard,  and  he 
was  looking  up  at  her  window,  whistling.  Shame, 
and  mirth,  and  also  exultation,  which  overpowered 
them  both,  stirred  within  the  child's  breast.  She  had 
read  of  things  like  this.  Here  was  her  boy  lover  com 
ing  out  this  bitter  night  just  for  the  sake  of  looking  up 
at  her  window.  She  adored  him  for  it.  Then  she 
heard  a  window  raised  with  a  violent  rasp  across  the 
yard,  and  saw  her  grandmother's  night-capped  head 
thrust  forth.  She  heard  her  shrill,  imperious  voice 
call  out  quite  distinctly,  "Boy,  who  be  you?" 

The  lovelorn  whistler  ceased  his  pipe,  and  evidently, 
had  he  consulted  his  own  discretion,  would  have  shown 
a  pair  of  flying  heels,  but  he  walked  bravely  up  to  the 
window  and  the  night-capped  head  and  replied.  Ellen 
could  not  hear  what  he  said,  but  she  distinguished 

177 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

plainly    enough     her     grandmother's    concluding    re 
marks. 

"Go  home/'  cried  Mrs.  Zelotes;  "go  home  just  as 
fast  as  you  can  and  go  to  bed.  Go  home!"  Mrs. 
Zelotes  made  a  violent  shooting  motion  with  her  hands 
and  her  white  head  as  if  he  were  a  cat,  and  Granville 
Joy  obeyed.  However,  Ellen  heard  his  brave,  retreat 
ing  whistle  far  down  the  road.  She  went  back  to  bed, 
and  lay  awake  with  a  fervor  of  young  love  roused  into 
a  flame  by  opposition  swelling  high  in  her  heart.  But 
the  next  afternoon,  after  school,  Ellen,  to  Granville 
Joy's  great  bliss  and  astonishment,  insinuated  her 
self,  through  the  crowd  of  out-going  scholars,  close  to 
him,  and  presently,  had  he  not  been  so  incredulous, 
for  he  was  a  modest  boy,  he  would  have  said  it  was  by 
no  volition  of  his  own  that  he  found  himself  walking 
down  the  street  with  her.  And  when  they  reached 
his  house,  which  was  only  half-way  to  her  own,  she 
looked  at  him  with  such  a  wistful  surprise  as  he  mo 
tioned  to  leave  her  that  he  could  not  mistake  it,  and  he 
walked  on  at  her  side  quite  to  her  own  house.  Gran 
ville  Joy  was  a  gentle  boy,  young  for  his  age,  which 
was  a  year  more  than  Ellen's.  He  had  a  face  as  gen 
tle  as  a  girl's,  and  really  beautiful.  Women  all  loved 
him,  and  the  school-girls  raised  an  admiring  treble 
chorus  in  his  praise  whenever  his  name  was  spoken. 
He  was  saved  from  effeminacy  by  nervous  impulses 
which  passed  for  sustained  manly  daring.  "lie  once 
licked  a  boy  a  third  bigger  than  he  was,  and  you 
needn't  call  him  sissy,"  one  girl  said  once  to  a  decry 
ing  friend.  To-day,  as  the  boy  and  girl  neared  Mrs.  Ze- 
lotes's  house,  Granville  was  conscious  of  an  inward 
shrinking  before  the  remembrance  of  the  terrible  old 
lady.  He  expected  every  minute  to  hear  the  grating 
upward  slide  of  the  window  and  that  old  voice,  which 
had  in  it  a  terrible  intimidation  of  feminine  will.  Gran- 

178 


"  HE  FOUND   HIMSELF  WALKING  HOME  FROM   SCHOOL 
WITH  HER" 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ville  had  a  mother  as  gentle  as  himself,  and  a  woman 
with  the  strength  of  her  own  conviction  upon  her  filled 
him  with  awe  as  of  something  anomalous.  He  won 
dered  uneasily  what  he  should  do  if  the  old  lady  were 
to  hail  him  and  call  him  to  an  account  again,  whether 
it  would  be  a  more  manly  course  to  face  her,  or  obey, 
since  she  was  Ellen's  grandmother.  He  kept  an.  un 
easy  eye  upon  the  house,  and  presently,  when  he  sa\v  the 
stern  old  face  at  the  window,  he  quailed  a  little.  But 
Ellen  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  took  his  arm,  and  the 
two  marched  past  under  the  fire  of  Mrs.  Zelotes's  gaze. 
Ellen  had  retaliated,  not  nobly,  but  as  naturally  under 
the  conditions  of  her  life  at  that  time  as  the  branch 
of  a  tree  blows  east  before  the  west  wind. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ELLEN,  when  she  graduated,  was  openly  pronounced 
the  flower  of  her  class.  Not  a  girl  equalled  her,  not  a 
boy  surpassed  her.  When  Ellen  came  home  one  night 
about  two  months  before  her  graduation,  and  announced 
that  she  was  to  have  the  valedictory,  such  a  light  of 
pure  joy  flashed  over  her  mother's  face  that  she  looked 
ten  years  younger. 

"Well,  I  guess  your  father  will  be  pleased  enough," 
she  said.  She  was  hard  at  work,  finishing  women's 
wrappers  of  cheap  cotton.  The  hood  industry  had 
failed  some  time  before,  since  the  hoods  had  gone  out 
of  fashion.  The  same  woman  had  taken  a  contract 
to  supply  a  large  firm  with  wrappers,  and  employed 
many  in  the  neighborhood,  paying  them  the  smallest 
possible  prices.  This  woman  was  a  usurer  on  a  scale 
so  pitiful  and  petty  that  it  almost  condoned  usury. 
Sometimes  a  man  on  discovering  the  miserable  pit 
tance  for  which  his  wife  toiled  during  every  minute 
which  she  could  snatch  from  her  household  duties 
and  the  care  of  her  children,  would  inveigh  against  it. 
"That  woman  is  cheating  you,"  he  would  say,  to  be 
met  with  the  argument  that  she  herself  was  only  mak 
ing  ten  cents  on  a  wrapper.  Looked  at  in  that  light, 
the  wretched  profit  of  the  workers  did  not  seem  so  out 
of  proportion.  It  was  usury  in  a  nutshell,  so  infini 
tesimal  as  almost  to  escape  detection.  Fanny  worked 
every  minute  which  she  could  secure  on  these  wrappers 
—  the  ungainly,  slatternly  home -gear  of  other  poor 
women.  There  was  an  air  of  dejected  femininity  and 

180 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

slipshod  drudgery  about  every  fold  of  one  of  them  when 
it  was  hung  up  finished.  Fanny  used  to  keep  them 
on  a  row  of  hooks  in  her  bedroom  until  a  dozen  were 
completed,  when  she  carried  them  to  her  employer, 
and  Ellen  used  to  look  at  them  with  a  sense  of  depres 
sion.  She  imagined  worn,  patient  faces  of  the  sis 
ters  of  poverty  above  the  limp  collars,  and  poor,  vein- 
ous  hands  dangling  from  the  clumsy  sleeves. 

Fanny  would  never  allow  Ellen  to  assist  her  in  this 
work,  though  she  begged  hard  to  do  so.  "  Wait  till 
you  get  out  of  school,"  said  she.  "You've  got  enough 
to  do  while  you  are  in  school." 

When  Ellen  told  her  about  the  valedictory,  Fanny 
was  so  overjoyed  that  she  lost  sight  of  her  work,  and 
sewed  in  the  sleeves  wrong.  "  There,  only  see  what 
you  have  made  me  do!"  she  cried,  laughing  with  de 
light  at  her  own  folly.  "Only  see,  you  have  made 
me  sew  in  both  these  sleeves  wrong.  You  are  a  great 
child.  Another  time  you  had  better  keep  away  with 
your  valedictories  till  I  get  my  wrapper  finished." 
Ellen  looked  up  from  the  book  which  she  had  taken. 

"  Let  me  rip  them  out  for  you,  mother,"  she  said. 

"No,  you  keep  on  with  your  study — it  won't  take 
me  but  a  minute.  I  don't  know  what  your  father  will 
say.  It  is  a  great  honor  to  be  chosen  to  write  the  vale 
dictory  out  of  that  big  class.  I  guess  your  father  will 
be  pleased." 

"  I  hope  I  can  write  a  good  one,"  said  Ellen. 

"Well,  if  you  can't,  I'd  give  up  my  beat,"  said  the 
mother,  looking  at  her  with  enthusiasm,  and  speak 
ing  with  scornful  chiding.  "Why  don't  you  go  over 
and  tell  your  grandmother  Brewster?  She'll  be  tick 
led  'most  to  death." 

Ellen  had  not  been  gone  long  when  Andrew  came 
home,  coming  into  the  yard,  bent  as  if  beneath  some 
invisible  burden  of  toil.  Just  then  he  had  work,  but 

181 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

not  in  Lloyd's.  He  had  grown  too  old  for  Lloyd's,  and 
had  been  discharged  long  ago. 

He  had  so  far  been  able  to  conceal  from  Fanny  the 
fact  that  he  had  withdrawn  all  his  little  savings  to  in 
vest  in  that  mining  stock.  The  stock  had  not  yet  come 
up,  as  he  had  expected.  He  very  seldom  had  a  circu 
lar  reporting  progress  nowadays.  When  he  did  have 
one  in  the  post-office  his  heart  used  to  stand  still  until 
he  had  torn  open  the  envelope  and  read  it.  It  was  uni 
formly  not  so  hopeful  as  formerly,  while  speciously 
apologetic.  Andrew  still  had  faith,  although  his  heart 
was  sick  with  its  long  deferring.  He  could  not  actually 
believe  that  all  his  savings  were  gone,  sunken  out  of 
sight  forever  in  this  awful  shaft  of  miscalculation  and 
misfortune.  What  he  dreaded  most  wras  that  Fanny 
should  find  out,  as  she  would  have  to  were  he  long  out 
of  employment. 

Andrew,  when  he  entered  the  house  on  his  return 
from  work,  had  come  to  open  a  door  into  the  room  where 
his  wife  was,  with  a  deprecating  and  apologetic  air. 
He  gained  confidence  when,  after  a  few  minutes,  the 
sore  subject  had  not  been  broached. 

To-night,  as  usual,  when  he  came  into  the  sitting- 
room  where  Fanny  was  sewing  it  was  with  a  sidelong 
glance  of  uneasy  deprecation  towards  her,  and  an  at 
tempt  to  speak  easily,  as  if  he  had  nothing  on  his  mind. 

"Pretty  warm  day,"  he  began,  but  his  wife  cut  him 
short.  She  faced  around  towards  him  beaming,  her 
work — a  pink  wrapper — slid  from  her  lap  to  the  floor. 

"What  do  you  think,  Andrew?"  she  said.  "What 
do  you  s'pose  has  happened?  Guess. "  Andrew  laughed 
gratefully,  and  with  the  greatest  alacrity.  Surely  this 
was  nothing  about  mining  -  stocks,  unless,  indeed, 
she  had  heard,  and  the  stocks  had  gone  up,  but  that 
seemed  too  much  like  the  millennium.  He  dismissed 
that  from  his  mind  before  it  entered.  He  stood  before 

182 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  in  his  worn  clothes.  He  always  wore  a  collar  and 
a  black  tie,  and  his  haggard  face  was  carefully  shaven. 
Andrew  was  punctiliously  neat,  on  Ellen's  account. 
He  was  always  thinking,  suppose  he  should  meet  Ellen 
coming  home  from  school,  with  some  young  ladies 
whose  fathers  were  rich  and  did  not  have  to  work  in 
the  shop,  how  mortified  she  might  feel  if  he  looked 
shabby  and  unkempt. 

"Guess,  Andrew,"  she  said. 

"  What  is  it?"  said  Andrew. 

"Oh,  you  guess." 

"  I  don't  see  what  it  can  be,  Fanny." 

"Well,  Ellen  has  got  the  valedictory.  What's  the 
matter  with  you?  Be  you  deaf?  Ellen  has  got  the 
valedictory  out  of  all  them  girls  and  boys." 

"She  has,  has  she?"  said  Andrew.  He  dropped  into 
a  chair  and  looked  at  his  wife.  There  was  something 
about  the  intense  interchange  of  confidence  of  delight 
between  these  two  faces  of  father  and  mother  which 
had  almost  the  unrestraint  of  lunacy.  Andrew's  jaw 
fairly  dropped  with  his  smile,  which  \vas  a  silent  laugh 
rather  than  a  smile;  his  eyes  were  wild  with  delight. 
"She  has,  has  she?"  he  kept  repeating. 

"Yes,  she  has,"  said  Fanny.  She  tossed  her  head 
with  an  incomparable  pride;  she  coughed  a  little,  af 
fected  cough.  "  I  s'pose  you  know  what  a  compliment 
it  is?"  said  she.  "It  means  that  she's  smarter  than 
all  them  boys  and  girls — the  smartest  one  in  her  \vhole 
class." 

"Yes,  I  s'pose  it  does,"  said  Andrew.  "So  she  has 
got  it!  Well!" 

"  There  she  comes  now,"  said  Fanny,  "  and  Grandma 
Brewster." 

Andrew  borrowed  money  to  buy  a  gold  watch  and 
chain  for  a  graduating  gift  for  his  daughter.  He  would 
scarcely  have  essayed  anything  quite  so  magnificent, 

183 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

but  Fanny  innocently  tempted  him.  The  two  had 
been  sitting  in  the  door  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  one 
day  in  June,  about  two  weeks  before  the  graduation, 
and  had  just  watched  Ellen's  light  muslin  skirts  nutter 
out  of  sight.  She  had  gone  down-town  to  purchase 
some  ribbon  for  her  graduating  dress — she  and  Floretta 
Vining,  who  had  come  over  to  accompany  her.  "I 
feel  kind  of  anxious  to  have  her  have  something  pretty 
when  she  graduates/'  Fanny  said,  speaking  as  if 
she  were  feeling  her  way  into  a  mind  of  opposition. 
Neither  she  nor  Andrew  had  ever  owned  a  watch,  and 
the  scheme  seemed  to  her  breathless  with  magnifi 
cence. 

"Yes,  she  ought  to  have  something  pretty,"  agreed 
Andrew. 

"I  don't  want  her  to  feel  ashamed  when  she  sees 
the  other  girls'  presents,"  said  Fanny. 

"That's  so,"  assented  Andrew. 

"Well,"  said  Fanny,  "I've  been  thinkin'— " 

"What?" 

"  Well,  I've  been  thinkin'  that — of  course  your  mother 
is  goin'  to  give  her  the  dress,  and  that's  all,  of  course, 
and  it's  a  real  handsome  present.  I  ain't  sayin'  a 
word  against  that;  but  there  ain't  anybody  else  to 
give  her  much  except  us.  Poor  Eva  'd  like  to,  but  she 
can't;  it  takes  all  she  earns,  since  Jim's  out  of  work, 
and  I  don't  know  what  she's  goin'  to  do.  So  that 
leaves  nobody  but  us,  and  I've  been  thinkin' — I  dun'no' 
what  you'll  say,  Andrew,  but  I've  been  thinkin' — 
s'pose  you  took  a  little  money  out  of  the  bank,  and 
— got  Ellen — a  watch."  Fanny  spoke  the  last  word 
in  a  faint  whisper.  She  actually  turned  pale  in  the 
darkness. 

"A  watch?"  repeated  Andrew. 

"Yes,  a  watch.  I've  always  wanted  Ellen  to  have 
a  gold  watch  and  chain.  I've  always  thought  she 

184 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

could,  and  so  she  could  if  you  hadn't  been  out  of  work 
so  much." 

"Yes,  she  could,"  said  Andrew — "a  watch  and 
mebbe  a  piano.  I  thought  I'd  be  back  in  Lloyd's  before 
now.  Well,  mebbe  I  shall  before  long.  They  say 
there's  better  times  comiri'  by  fall." 

"Well,  Ellen  will  be  graduated  by  that  time,"  said 
Fanny,  "  and  she  ought  to  have  the  watch  now  if  she's 
ever  goin'  to.  She'll  never  think  so  much  of  it.  Flo- 
retta  Vining  is  goin'  to  have  a  watch,  too.  Mrs.  Cross 
says  her  mother  told  her  so ;  said  Mr.  Vining  had  it  all 
bought  —  a  real  handsome  one.  I  don't  believe  Sam 
Vining  can  afford  to  buy  a  gold  watch.  I  don't  believe 
it  is  all  gold,  for  my  part.  The}^  'ain't  got  as  much 
as  we  have,  if  Sam  has  had  work  steadier.  I  don't 
believe  it's  gold.  I  don't  want  Ellen  to  have  a  watch 
at  ail  unless  it's  a  real  good  one.  It  seems  to  me  you'd 
better  take  a  little  money  out  and  buy  her  one,  Andrew/' 

"Well,  I'll  see,"  said  Andrew.  He  had  a  terrible 
sense  of  guilt  before  Fanny.  Suppose  she  knew  that 
there  was  no  money  at  all  in  the  bank  to  take  out? 

"Well,  I'll  buy  her  one  if  you  say  so,"  said  he,  in 
a  curious,  slow,  stern  voice.  In  his  heart  was  a  fierce 
rising  of  rebellion,  that  he,  hard-working  and  frugal 
and  self-denying  all  his  life,  should  be  denied  the  privi 
lege  of  buying  a  present  for  his  darling  without  resort 
ing  to  deception,  and  even  almost  robbery.  He  did  not 
at  that  minute  blame  himself  in  the  least  for  his  mis 
adventure  with  his  mining  stock.  Had  not  the  same 
relentless  Providence  driven  him  to  that  also?  His 
weary  spirit  took  for  the  first  time  a  poise  of  utter  self- 
righteousness  in  opposition  to  this  Providence,  and  he 
blasphemed  in  his  inner  closet  of  self,  before  the  face 
of  the  Lord,  as  he  comprehended  it. 

"Well,  I  have  a  sort  of  set  my  heart  on  it,"  said 
Fanny. 

185 


THE     PORTION     OF     L  A  B  O  R 

"She  shall  have  the  watch/'  repeated  Andrew,  and 
his  voice  was  fairly  defiant. 

After  Fanny  had  gone  into  the  house  and  lighted 
her  lamp,  and  resumed  work  on  her  wrapper,  Andrew 
still  sat  on  the  step  in  the  cool  evening.  There  was  a 
full  moon,  and  great  masses  of  shadows  seemed  to 
float  and  hover  arid  alight  on  the  earth  with  a  gigantic 
brooding  as  of  birds.  The  trees  seemed  redoubled  in 
size  from  the  soft  indetermination  of  the  moonlight 
which  confused  shadow  and  light,  and  deceived  the  eye 
as  with  soft  loomings  out  of  false  distances.  There 
was  a  tall  pine,  grown  from  a  sapling  since  Ellen's 
childhood,  and  that  looked  more  like  a  column  of  mist 
than  a  tree,  but  the  Norway  spruces  clove  the  air  sharp 
ly  like  silhouettes  in  ink,  and  outlined  their  dark-  pro 
files  clearly  against  the  silver  radiance. 

To  Andrew,  looking  at  it  all,  came  the  feeling  of  a 
traveller  who  passes  all  scenes  whether  of  joy  or  woe, 
being  himself  in  his  passing  the  one  thing  which  re 
mains,  and  somehow  he  got  from  it  an  enormous  com 
fort. 

"  We're  all  travellin'  along,"  he  said  aloud,  in  a  strain 
ed,  solemn  voice. 

"What  did  you  say,  Andrew?"  Fanny  called  from 
the  open  window. 

"Nothin',"  replied  Andrew. 

186 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ELLEN  had  ahvays  had  objective  points,  as  it  were, 
in  her  life,  and  she  always  would  have,  no  matter  how 
long  she  lived.  She  came  to  places  where  she  stopped 
mentally,  for  retrospection  and  forethought,  wherefrom 
she  could  seem  to  obtain  a  view  of  that  which  lay  be 
hind,  and  of  the  path  which  was  set  for  her  feet  in 
advance.  She  saw  the  tracked  and  the  trackless. 
Once,  going  with  Abby  Atkins  and  Floretta  in  search 
of  early  spring  flowers,  Ellen  had  lingered  and  let 
them  go  out  of  sight,  and  had  sat  down  on  a  springing 
mat  of  wintergreen  leaves  under  the  windy  outstretch 
of  a  great  pine,  and  had  remained  there  quite  deaf 
to  shrill  halloos.  She  had  sat  there  with  eyes  of  inward 
scrutiny  like  an  Eastern  sage's,  motionless  as  on  a 
rock  of  thought,  while  her  daily  life  eddied  around 
her.  Ellen,  sitting  there,  had  said  to  herself :  "  This 
I  will  always  remember.  No  matter  how  long  I  live, 
where  I  am,  and  what  happens  to  me,  I  will  always 
remember  how  I  was  a  child,  and  sat  here  this  morning 
in  spring  under  the  pine-tree,  looking  backward  and 
forward.  I  will  never  forget." 

When,  finally,  Abby  and  Floretta  had  run  back,  and 
spied  her  there,  they  had  stared  half  frightened.  "  You 
ain't  sick,  are  JTOU,  Ellen?"  asked  Abby,  anxiously. 

"  What  are  you  sitting  there  for?"  asked  Floretta. 

Ellen  had  replied  that  she  was  not  sick,  and  had  risen 
and  run  on,  looking  for  flowers,  but  the  flowers  for  her 
bloomed  always  against  a  background  of  the  past, 
and  nodded  with  forward  flings  of  fragrance  into  the 

187  ^ 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

future ;  for  the  other  children,  who  were  wholly  of  their 
own  day  and  generation,  they  bloomed  in  the  simple 
light  of  their  own  desire  of  possession.  They  picked 
only  flowers,  but  Ellen  picked  thoughts,  and  they  kept 
casting  bewildered  side -glances  at  her,  for  the  look 
which  had  come  into  her  eyes  as  she  sat  beneath  the 
pine-tree  lingered. 

It  was  as  if  a  rose  had  a  second  of  self-consciousness 
between  the  bud  and  the  blossom;  a  bird  between  its 
mother's  brooding  and  the  song.  She  had  caught  sight 
of  the  innermost  processes  of  things,  of  her  wheels  of 
life. 

Ellen  waked  up  on  that  June  morning,  and  the  old 
sensation  of  a  pause  before  advance  was  upon  her,  and 
the  strange  solemnity  which  was  almost  a  terror,  from 
the  feeble  clutching  of  her  mind  at  the  comprehension 
of  infinity.  She  looked  at  the  morning  sunlight  coining 
between  the  white  slants  of  her  curtains,  an  airy  flutter 
of  her  new  dress  from  the  closet,  her  valedictory,  tied 
with  a  white  satin  ribbon,  on  the  stand,  and  she  saw 
quite  plainly  all  which  had  led  up  to  this,  and  to  her, 
Ellen  Brewster;  and  she  saw  also  the  inevitableness 
of  its  passing,  the  precious  valedictory  being  laid  away 
and  buried  beneath  a  pile  of  future  ones;  she  saw  the 
crowd  of  future  valedictorians  advancing  like  a  flock  of 
white  cloves  in  their  white  gowns,  when  hers  was  worn 
out,  and  its  beauty  gone,  pressing  forward,  dimming 
her  to  her  own  vision.  She  saw  how  she  would  come 
to  look  calmly  and  coldly  upon  all  that  filled  her  with 
such  joy  and  excitement  to-day;  how  the  savor  of  the 
moment  would  pass  from  her  tongue,  and  she  said  to 
herself  that  she  would  always  remember  this  moment. 

Then  suddenly — since  she  had  in  herself  an  impetus 
of  motion  which  nothing,  not  even  reflection,  could  long 
check — she  saw  quite  plainly  a  light  beyond,  after  all 
this  should  have  passed,  and  the  leaping  power  of  her 

188 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

spirit  to  gain  it.  And  then,  since  she  was  healthy, 
and  given  only  at  wide  intervals  to  these  Eastern  lapses 
of  consciousness  from  the  present,  she  was  back  in  her 
day,  and  alive  to  all  its  importance  as  a  part  of  time. 

She  felt  the  bounding  elation  of  tossing  on  the  crest 
of  her  wave  of  success,  and  the  full  rainbow  glory  of  it 
dazzled  her  eyes.  She  was  first  in  her  class,  she  was 
valedictorian,  she  had  a  beautiful  dress,  she  was  young, 
she  was  first.  It  is  a  poor  spirit,  and  one  incapable  of 
courage  in  defeat,  who  feels  not  triumph  in  victory. 
Ellen  was  triumphant  and  confident.  She  had  faith 
in  herself  and  the  love  and  approbation  of  everybody. 

When  she  was  seated  with  her  class  on  the  stage  in 
the  city  hall,  where  the  graduating  exercises  were  held, 
she  saw  herself  just  as  she  looked,  and  it  was  with  a 
satisfaction  which  had  nothing  weakly  in  its  vein,  and 
smiled  radiantly  and  innocently  at  herself  as  seen  in 
this  mirror  of  love  and  appreciation  of  all  who  knew  her. 

V,7hen  the  band  stopped  playing,  and  Ellen,  who  as 
valedictorian  came  last  as  the  crown  and  capsheaf  of 
it  all,  stepped  forward  from  the  semicircle  of  white- 
clad  girls  and  seriously  abashed  boys,  there  was  a 
subdued  murmur  and  then  a  hush  all  over  the  hall. 
Andrew  and  Fanny  and  the  grandmother,  seated 
directly  in  front  of  the  stage — for  they  had  come  early 
to  secure  good  seats — heard  whispers  of  admiration  on 
every  side.  It  was  admiration  with  no  dissent — such 
jealous  ears  as  theirs  could  not  be  deceived.  Fanny's 
face  was  blazing  with  the  sweet  shame  of  pride  in  her 
child;  Andrew  was  pale;  the  grandmother  sat  as  if 
petrified,  with  a  proud  toss  of  her  head.  They  looked 
straight  ahead;  the}r  dared  not  encounter  each  other's 
eyes,  for  they  were  more  self-conscious  than  Ellen. 
They  felt  the  attention  of  the  whole  assembly  upon 
them.  Andrew  was  conscious  of  feeling  ill  and  faint. 
His  own  joy  seemed  to  overwhelm  him.  He  forgot  his 

189 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stocks,  he  forgot  his  borrowed  money,  he  forgot  Lloj'd's ; 
he  was  perfectly  happy  at  the  sight  of  that  beautiful 
young  creature  of  his  own  heart,  who  was  preferred 
before  all  others  in  the  sight  of  the  whole  city.  In 
truth,  there  was  about  Ellen  a  majesty  and  nobility  of 
youth  and  innocence  and  beauty  which  overawed.  The 
other  girls  of  the  class  were  as  young  and  as  pretty, 
but  none  of  them  had  that  indescribable  quality  which 
seemed  to  raise  her  above  them  all.  Ellen  still  kept 
her  blond  fairness,  but  there  was  nothing  of  the  doll- 
like  which  often  characterizes  the  blond  type.  Al 
though  she  was  small,  Ellen's  color  had  the  firmness 
and  unwavering  of  tinted  marble ;  she  carried  her  crown 
of  yellow  braids  as  if  it  had  been  gold ;  she  moved  and 
looked  and  spoke  with  decision.  The  violent  and 
intense  temperament  which  she  had  inherited  from 
two  sides  of  her  family  had  crystallized  in  her  to  some 
thing  more  forcible,  but  also  more  impressive.  How 
ever,  she  was,  after  all,  only  a  young  girl,  scarcely  more 
than  a  child,  whatever  her  principle  of  underlying 
character  might  be,  and  when  she  stood  there  before 
them  all — all  her  townspeople  who  represented  her 
world,  the  human  shore  upon  which  her  own  little 
individuality  beat — when  she  saw  those  attentive  faces, 
row  upon  row,  all  fixed  upon  her,  she  felt  her  heart 
pound  against  her  side;  she  had  no  sensation  of  the 
roll  of  paper  in  her  hand;  an  awful  terror  as  of  suddenly 
discovered  depths  came  over  her,  as  the  wild  clapping 
of  hands  to  which  her  appearance  had  given  rise  died 
away.  Ellen  stood  still,  holding  the  valedictory  as 
if  it  had  been  a  stick.  A  little  wondering  murmur 
began  to  be  heard.  Andrew  felt  as  if  he  were  dying. 
Fanny  gripped  his  arm  hard.  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  the 
look  of  one  about  to  spring.  Ellen  had  the  terrible 
sensation  which  has  in  it  a  nightmare  of  inability  to 
move,  allied  with  the  intensest  consciousness.  She 

190 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

knew  that  she  was  to  read  her  valedictory,  she  knew 
that  she  must  raise  that  white-ribboned  roll  and  read, 
or  else  be  disgraced  forever,  and  yet  she  was  powerless. 
But  suddenly  some  compelling  glance  seemed  to  arouse 
her  from  this  lock  of  nerve  and  muscle;  she  raised  her 
eyes,  and  Cynthia  Lennox,  on  the  farther  side  of  the 
hall,  was  gazing  full  at  her  with  ail  indescribable  gaze 
of  passion  and  help  and  command.  Her  own  mother's 
look  could  not  have  influenced  her.  Ellen  raised  her 
valedictory,  bowed,  and  began  to  read.  Andrew  looked 
so  pale  that  people  nudged  one  another  to  look  at 
him.  Mrs.  Zelotes  settled  back,  relaxing  stiffly  from 
her  fierce  attitude.  Fanny  wiped  her  forehead  with  a 
cheap  lace-bordered  handkerchief.  There  was  a  stifled 
sob  farther  back,  that  came  from  Eva  Tenny,  who  sat 
back  on  account  of  a  break  across  the  shoulders  in  the 
back  of  her  silk  dress.  Amabel,  anaemic  and  eager  in  a 
little,  tawdry,  cheap  muslin  frock,  sat  beside  her,  with 
worshipful  eyes  on  Ellen.  "What  ailed  her?"  she 
whispered,  hitting  her  mother  with  a  sharp  little  elbow. 
"Hush  up!"  whispered  Eva,  angrily,  surreptitiously 
wiping  her  eyes.  In  front,  directly  in  her  line  of  vision, 
sat  the  woman  of  whom  she  was  jealous — the  young 
widow,  who  had  been  Aggie  Bemis,  arrayed  in  a  hand 
some  India  silk  and  a  flower-laden  hat.  Eva's  hat 
was  trimmed  with  a  draggled  feather  and  a  bunch 
of  roses  which  she  had  tried  to  color  with  aniline  dye. 
When  she  got  home  that  night  she  tore  the  feather  out 
of  the  hat  and  flung  it  across  the  room.  She  wished 
to  do  it  that  afternoon  every  time  she  looked  at  the 
other  woman's  roses  against  the  smooth  knot  of  her 
brown  hair,  and  that  repressed  impulse,  with  her  alarm 
at  Ellen's  silence,  had  made  her  almost  hysterical. 
When  Ellen's  clear  young  voice  rose  and  filled  the  hall 
she  calmed  herself.  Ellen  had  not  folded  back  her 
first  page  with  a  flutter  of  the  white  satin  ribbons  before 

191 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

people  began  to  sit  straight  and  stare  at  each  other 
incredulously.  The  subject  of  the  valedictory,  as 
well  as  those  of  the  other  essays,  had  been  allotted, 
and  Ellen's  had  been  "Equality,"  and  she  had  written 
a  most  revolutionary  valedictory.  Ellen  had  written 
with  a  sort  of  poetic  fire,  and,  crude  as  it  all  was,  she 
might  have  had  the  inspiration  of  a  Shelley  or  a  Chatter- 
ton  as  she  stood  there,  raising  her  fearless  young  front 
over  the  marshalling  of  her  sentiments  on  the  smooth 
sheets  of  foolscap.  Her  voice,  once  started,  rang  out 
clear  and  full.  She  had  hesitated  at  nothing,  she 
flung  all  castes  into  a  common  heap  of  equality  with 
her  strong  young  arms,  and  she  set  them  all  on  one 
level  of  the  synagogue.  She  forced  the  employer  and 
his  employe  to  one  bench  of  service  in  the  grand  sys 
tem  of  things;  she  gave  the  laborer,  and  the  laborer  only, 
the  reward  of  labor.  As  Ellen  went  on  reading  calmly, 
with  the  steadfastness  of  one  promulgating  principles, 
not  the  excitement  of  one  carried  away  by  enthusiasm, 
she  began  to  be  interrupted  by  applause,  but  she  read 
on,  never  wavering,  her  clear  voice  overcoming  every 
thing.  She  was  quite  innocently  throwing  her  wordy 
bomb  to  the  agitation  of  public  sentiment.  She  had 
no  thought  of  such  an  effect.  She  was  stating  what 
she  believed  to  be  facts  with  her  youthful  dogmatism. 
She  had  no  fear  lest  the  facts  strike  too  hard.  The 
school-master's  face  grew  long  with  dismay;  he  sat 
pulling  his  mustache  in  a  fashion  he  had  when  dis 
turbed,  lie  glanced  uneasily  now  and  then  at  Mr. 
Lloyd,  and  at  another  leading  manufacturer  who  was 
present.  The  other  manufacturer  sat  quite  stolid  and 
unsmiling  beside  a  fidgeting  wife,  who  presently  arose 
and  swept  out  with  a  loud  rustle  of  silks.  She  looked 
back  once  and  beckoned  angrily  to  her  husband,  but  he 
did  not  stir.  He  was  on  the  school-board.  The  school 
master  trembled  when  he  saw  that  imperturbable  face 

192 


THE    VALEDICTORY 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  storing  recollection  before  him.  Mr.  Lloyd  leaned 
towards  Lyman  Risley,  who  sat  beside  him  and  whis 
pered  and  laughed.  It  was  quite  evident  that  he  did 
not  consider  the  flight  of  this  little  fledgling  in  the  face 
of  things  seriously.  But  even  he,  as  Ellen's  clearly  de 
livered  sentiments  grew  more  and  more  defined — almost 
anarchistic — became  a  little  grave  in  spite  of  the  absurd 
incongruity  between  them  and  the  girlish  lips.  Once 
he  looked  in  some  wonder  at  the  school-teacher  as 
much  as  to  say,  "Why  did  you  permit  this?"  and  the 
young  man  pulled  his  mustache  harder. 

When  Ellen  finished  and  made  her  bow,  such  a  storm 
of  applause  arose  as  had  never  before  been  heard  at 
a  high  -  school  exhibition.  The  audience  was  for  the 
most  part  composed  of  factory  employes  and  their 
families,  as  most  of  the  graduates  were  of  that  class  of 
the  community.  Many  of  them  were  of  foreign  blood, 
people  who  had  come  to  the  country  expecting  the 
stat-j  of  things  advocated  in  Ellen's  valedictory,  and 
had  remained  more  or  less  sullen  and  dissenting  at  the 
non-fulfilment  of  their  expectation.  One  tall  Swede, 
with  a  lurid  flashing  of  blue  eyes  under  a  thick,  blond 
thatch,  led  the  renewed  charges  of  applause.  Red 
spots  came  on  his  cheeks,  gaunt  with  high  cheek 
bones  ;  his  cold  Northern  blood  was  up.  He  stood  up- 
reared  against  a  background  of  the  crowd  under  the 
ba  ;ony ;  he  stamped  when  the  applause  died  low ;  then 
it  swelled  again  and  again  like  great  waves.  The 
Swede  brandished  his  long  arms,  he  shouted,  others 
echoed  him.  Even  the  women  hallooed  in  a  frenzy  of 
applause,  they  clapped  their  hands,  they  stood  up  in 
their  seats.  Only  a  few  sat  silent  and  contemptuous 
through  all  the  enthusiasm.  Thomas  Briggs,  the 
manufacturer,  was  one  of  them.  He  sat  like  a  rock, 
his  great,  red,  imperturbable  face  of  dissent  fixed  straight 
ahead.  Mrs.  Lloyd  clapped  wildly,  on  account  of  the 

193 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

girl  who  had  read  the  valedictory.  She  had  slept 
through  the  greater  part  of  it,  for  it  was  very  warm, 
and  the  heat  always  made  her  drowsy.  She  kept 
leaning  towards  Cynthia  as  she  clapped,  and  asking  in 
a  loud  whisper  if  she  wasn't  sweet.  Cynthia  did  not 
applaud,  but  her  delicate  face  was  pale  with  emotion. 
Lyman  Risley,  beside  her,  was  clapping  energetically. 
"She  may  have  a  bomb  somewhere  concealed  among 
those  ribbons  and  frills,"  he  said  to  Lloyd  when  the 
applause  was  waxing  loudest,  and  Lloyd  laughed. 

As  for  Ellen,  when  the  storm  of  applause  burst  at  her 
feet,  she  stood  still  for  a  moment  bewildered.  Then 
she  bowed  again  and  turned  to  go,  then  the  compel 
ling  uproar  brought  her  back.  She  stood  there  quite 
piteous  in  her  confusion.  This  was  too  much  tri 
umph,  and,  moreover,  she  had  not  the  least  idea  of  the 
true  significance  of  it  all.  She  was  like  a  chemist  who 
had  brought  together,  quite  ignorantly  and  unwitting 
ly,  the  twro  elements  of  an  explosive.  She  thought  that 
her  valedictory  must  have  been  well  done,  that  they 
liked  it,  and  that  was  all.  She  had  no  sooner  finished 
reading  than  the  ushers  began  in  the  midst  of  the  storm 
of  applause  to  approach  the  stage  with  her  graduating 
presents.  They  were  laden  with  great  bouquets  and 
baskets  of  flowers,  with  cards  conspicuously  attached 
to  most  of  them.  Cynthia  Lennox  had  sent  a  basket 
of  roses.  Ellen  took  it  on  her  arm,  and  wondered  when 
she  saw  the  name  attached  to  the  pink  satin  bowr  on  the 
handle.  She  did  not  look  again  towards  Cynthia  since 
the  old  impulse  of  concealment  on  her  account  came 
over  her.  Ellen  had  great  boxes  of  candy  from  her  bo\T 
admirers,  that  being  a  favorite  token  of  young  affec 
tion  upon  such  occasions.  She  had  a  gift-book  from 
her  former  school-teacher,  and  a  ninety-eight-cent  gild 
ed  vase  from  Eva  and  Amabel,  who  had  been  saving 
money  to  buy  it.  She  heard  a  murmur  of  admiration 

194 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

when  she  had  finally  reached  her  .seat,  after  the  storm 
of  applause  had  at  last  subsided,  and  she  unrolled  the 
packages  with  trembling  fingers. 

"My,  ain't  that  handsome!"  said  Floretta,  pressing 
her  muslin-clad  shoulder  against  Ellen's.  "  My,  didn't 
they  clap  you,  Ellen!  What's  that  in  that  package?" 

The  package  contained  Ellen's  new  watch  and  chain. 
Floretta  had  already  received  hers,  and  it  lay  in  its 
case  on  her  lap.  Ellen  looked  at  the  package,  not  hear 
ing  in  the  least  the  Baptist  minister  who  had  taken 
his  place  on  the  stage,  and  was  delivering  an  address. 
She  had  felt  her  aunt  Eva's  and  Amabel's  eager  eyes 
on  her  when  she  unrolled  the  gaudy  vase;  now  she  felt 
her  father's  and  mother's.  The  small,  daintily  tied 
package  was  inscribed  "Ellen  Brewster,  from  Father 
and  Mother." 

"  Why  don't  you  open  it?"  came  in  her  ear  from  Flo 
retta.  Maria  was  leaning  forward  also,  over  her  lapful 
of  carnations  which  John  Sargent  had  presented  to  her. 

"Why  don't  she  open  it?"  she  whispered  to  Floretta. 
They  were  all  quite  oblivious  of  the  speaker,  who  moved 
nervously  back  and  forth  in  front  of  them,  so  screen 
ing  them  somewhat  from  the  observation  of  the  audi 
ence.  Still  Ellen  hesitated,  looking  at  the  little  pack 
age  and  feeling  her  father's  and  mother's  eyes  on  her 
face. 

Finally  she  untied  the  cord  and  took  out  the  jew 
eller's  case  from  the  wrapping-paper.  "  My,  you've 
got  one  too,  I  bet!"  whispered  Floretta.  Ellen  opened 
the  box,  and  gazed  at  her  watch  and  chain ;  then  she 
glanced  at  her  father  and  mother  down  in  the  audience, 
and  the  three  loving  souls  seemed  to  meet  in  an  inef 
fable  solitude  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd.  All  three 
faces  were  pale — Ellen's  began  to  quiver.  She  felt 
Floretta's  shoulder  warm  through  her  thin  sleeve 
against  hers. 

195 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"My!  you've  got  one — I  said  so,"  she  whispered. 
"  It  isn't  chased  as  much  as  mine,  hut  it's  real  hand 
some.  My,  Ellen  Brewster,  you  ain't  going  to  cry 
before  all  these  people!" 

Ellen  smiled  against  a  sob,  and  she  gave  her  head 
a  defiant  toss.  Down  in  the  audience  Fanny  had  her 
handkerchief  to  her  eyes,  and  Andrew  sat  looking  stern 
ly  at  the  speaker.  Ellen  said  to  herself  that  she  would 
not  cry — she  would  not,  but  she  sat  gazing  down  at 
her  flower-laden  lap  and  the  presents.  The  golden 
disk  under  her  fixed  eyes  waxed  larger  and  larger, 
until  it  seemed  to  fill  her  whole  comprehension  as  with 
a  golden  light  of  a  suffering,  self-denying  love  which 
was  her  best  reward  of  life  and  labor  on  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

AFTER  the  exhibition  there  was  a  dance.  The  Brew- 
sters,  even  Mrs.  Zelotes,  remained  to  see  the  last  of 
Ellen's  triumph.  Mrs.  Zelotes  was  firmly  convinced 
that  Ellen's  appearance  excelled  any  one's  in  the  hall. 
Not  a  girl  swung  past  them  in  the  dance  but  she  eyed 
her  white  dress  scornfully,  then  her  rosy  face,  and 
sniffed  with  high  nostrils  like  an  old  war-horse.  "  Jest 
look  at  that  Yining  girl's  dress,  coarse  enough  to  strain 
through,"  she  said  to  Fanny,  leaning  across  Andrew, 
who  was  sitting  rapt,  his  very  soul  dancing  with  his 
daughter,  his  eyes  never  leaving  her  one  second,  fol 
lowing  her  fair  head  and  white  nutter  of  muslin  ruffles 
and  ribbons  around  the  hall. 

"Yes,  that's  so,"  assented  Fanny,  but  not  with  her 
usual  sharpness.  A  wistful  softness  and  sweetness 
was  on  her  coarsely  handsome  face.  Once  she  reached 
her  hand  over  Andrew's  and  pressed  it,  and  blushed 
crimson  as  she  did  so.  Andrew  turned  and  smiled  at 
her.  All  that  annoyed  Andrew  was  that  Ellen  danced 
with  Granville  Joy  often,  and  also  with  other  boys. 
It  disturbed  him  a  little,  even  while  it  delighted  him, 
that  she  should  dance  at  all,  that  she  should  have 
learned  to  dance.  Andrew  had  been  brought  up  to 
look  upon  dancing  as  an  amusement  for  Louds  rather 
than  for  Brewsters.  It  had  not  been  in  vogue  among 
the  aristocracy  of  this  little  New  England  city  when  he 
was  young. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  watched  Ellen  dance  with  inward  delight 
and  outward  disapproval.  "I  don't  approve  of  danc- 

197 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ing,  never  did,"  she  said  to  Andrew,  but  she  was  furious 
once  when  Ellen  sat  through  a  dance.  Towards  the 
end  of  the  evening  she  saw  with  sudden  alertness  Ellen 
dancing  with  a  new  partner,  a  handsome  young  man, 
who  carried  himself  with  more  assurance  than  the 
school-boys.  Mrs.  Zelotes  hit  Andrew  with  her  sharp 
elbow. 

"Who's  that  dancing  with  her  now?"  she  said. 

"That's  young  Lloyd,"  answered  Andrew.  He 
flushed  a  little,  and  looked  pleased. 

"Norman  Lloyd's  nephew?"  asked  his  mother, 
sharply. 

"Yes,  he's  on  here  from  St.  Louis.  He's  goin'  into 
business  with  his  uncle/'  replied  Andrew.  "Sargent 
was  telling  me  about  it  yesterday.  Young  Lloyd 
came  into  the  post-office  while  we  were  there."  Fanny 
had  been  listening.  Immediately  she  married  Ellen 
to  young  Lloyd,  and  the  next  moment  she  went  to 
live  in  a  grand  new  house  built  in  a  twinkling  in  a 
vacant  lot  next  to  Norman  Lloyd's  residence,  which 
was  the  wonder  of  the  city.  She  reared  this  castle  in 
Spain  writh  inconceivable  swif tness,  even  while  she  was 
turning  her  head  towards  Eva  on  the  other  side,  and 
prodding  her  with  an  admonishing  elbow  as  Mrs.  Ze 
lotes  had  prodded  Andrew.  "  That's  Norman  Lloyd's 
nephew  dancing  with  her  now,"  she  said.  Eva  looked 
at  her,  smiling.  Directly  the  idea  of  Ellen's  marriage 
with  the  young  man  with  whom  she  was  dancing  es 
tablished  full  connections  and  ran  through  the  line 
of  Ellen's  relatives  as  though  an  electric  wire. 

As  for  Ellen,  dancing  with  this  stranger,  who  had 
been  introduced  to  her  by  the  school-master,  she  certainly 
had  no  thought  of  a  possible  marriage  with  him,  but 
she  had  looked  into  his  face  with  a  curious,  ready  leap 
of  sympatlw  and  understanding  of  this  other  soul 
which  she  met  for  the  first  time.  It  seemed  to  her  that 

198 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

she  must  have  known  him  before,  but  she  knew  that 
she  had  not.  She  began  to  reflect  as  they  were  whirling 
about  the  hall,  she  gazed  at  that  secret  memory  of  hers, 
which  she  had  treasured  since  her  childhood,  and  dis 
covered  that  what  had  seemed  familiar  to  her  about  the 
young  man  was  the  face  of  a  familiar  thought.  Ever 
since  Miss  Cynthia  Lennox  had  told  her  about  her 
nephew,  the  little  boy  who  had  owned  and  loved  the 
doll,  Ellen  had  unconsciously  held  the  thought  of  him  in 
her  mind.  "You  are  Miss  Cynthia  Lennox's  nephew," 
she  said  to  young  Lloyd. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  lie  nodded  towards  Cynthia, 
who  was  sitting  on  the  opposite  side  from  the  Brewsters, 
with  the  Norman  Lloyds  and  Lyman  Risley.  "She 
used  to  be  like  a  mother  to  me,"  he  said.  "You  know 
I  lost  my  mother  when  I  was  a  baby." 

Ellen  nodded  at  him  with  a  look  of  pity  of  that  mar 
vellous  scope  which  only  a  woman  in  whom  the  ma 
ternal  slumbers  ready  to  awake  can  compass.  Ellen, 
looking  at  the  handsome  face  of  the  young  man,  saw 
quite  distinctly  in  it  the  face  of  the  little  motherless 
child,  and  all  the  tender  pity  which  she  would  have 
felt  for  that  child  was  in  her  eyes. 

"  What  a  beautiful  girl  she  is,"  thought  the  young 
man.  He  smiled  at  her  admiringly,  loving  her  look 
at  him,  while  not  in  the  least  understanding  it.  He 
had  asked  to  be  presented  to  Ellen  from  curiosity.  He 
had  not  been  at  the  exhibition,  and  had  heard  the 
school-master  and  Risley  talking  about  the  valedictory. 
"I  didn't  know  that  you  taught  anarchy  in  school, 
Mr.  Harris,"  Risley  had  said.  He  laughed  as  he 
said  it,  but  Harris  had  colored  with  an  uneasy  look 
at  Norman  Lloyd,  whose  face  wore  an  expression  of 
amusement.  "Perhaps  I  should  have,"  he  began,  but 
Lloyd  interrupted  him.  "My  dear  fellow,"  he  said, 
"  you  don't  imagine  that  any  man  in  his  senses  could 

199 


take  seriously  enough  to  be  annoyed  by  it  that  child's 
effusion  on  her  nice  little  roll  of  foolscap  tied  with  her 
pretty  \vhite  satin  rribbcn?" 

"She  is  just  as  sweet  as  she  can  be/'  said  Mrs.  Nor 
man,  "and  I  thought  her  composition  was  real  pretty. 
Didn't  you,  Cynthia?" 

"Very,"  replied  Cynthia. 

"What  you  are  worrying  about  it  for,  Edward,  I 
don't  see,"  said  Mrs.  Norman  to  the  school-master. 

"Well,  I  am  glad  if  it  struck  you  that  way,"  said  he, 
"but  when  I  heard  the  applause  from  all  those  factory 
people " — he  lowered  his  voice,  since  a  number  were 
sitting  near — "  I  didn't  know,  but—  He  hesitated. 

"That  the  spark  that  would  fire  the  mine  might  be 
in  that  pretty  little  beribboned  roll  of  foolscap,"  said 
Risley,  laughing.  "  Well,  it  was  a  very  creditable 
production,  and  it  was  written  with  the  energy  of  con 
viction.  The  Czar  and  that  little  school-girl  would 
not  live  long  in  one  country,  if  she  goes  on  as  she  has 
begun." 

It  was  then  that  young  Lloyd,  who  had  just  come  in, 
and  was  standing  beside  the  school-master,  turned 
eagerly  to  him,  and  asked  who  the  girl  was,  and  begged 
him  to  present  him. 

"Perhaps  he'll  fall  in  love  with  her,"  said  Mrs.  Nor 
man,  directly,  when  the  two  men  had  gone  across  the 
hall  in  quest  of  Ellen.  Her  husband  laughed. 

"You  have  not  seen  your  aunt  for  a  long  time," 
Ellen  said  to  young  Lloyd,  when  they  were  sitting 
out  a  dance  after  their  waltz  together. 

"Not  since — I — I  came  on — with  my  father  when 
he  died,"  he  replied.  Again  Ellen  looked  at  him  with 
that  wonderful  pity  in  her  face,  and  again  the  young 
man  thought  he  had  never  seen  such  a  girl. 

"I  think  your  aunt  is  beautiful,"  Ellen  said,  pres 
ently,  gazing  across  at  Cynthia. 

200 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Yes,  she  must  have  been  a  beauty  when  she  was 
young." 

"I  think  she  is  now,"  said  Ellen,  quite  fervently, 
for  she  was  able  to  disabuse  her  mind  of  associations 
and  rely  upon  pure  observation,  and  it  was  quite  true 
that  leaving  out  of  the  question  Cynthia's  age  and  the 
memory  of  her  face  in  stronger  lights  at  closer  view, 
she  was  as  beautiful  from  \vhere  they  sat  as  some  grace 
ful  statue.  Only  clear  outlines  showed  at  that  dis 
tance,  and  her  soft  hair,  which  was  quite  white,  lay 
in  heavy  masses  around  the  intense  repose  of  her  face. 

"Yes — s,"  admitted  Robert,  somewhat  hesitatingly. 
"  She  used  to  think  everything  of  me  when  I  was  a  little 
shaver,"  he  said. 
"  Doesn't  she  now?" 

"  Oh  yes,  I  suppose  she  does,  but  it  is  different  now. 
I  am  grown  up.  A  man  doesn't  need  so  much  done 
for  him  when  he  is  grown  up." 

Then  again  he  looked  at  Ellen  with  eyes  of  pleading 
which  would  have  made  of  the  older  woman  what  he 
remembered  her  to  have  been  in  his  childhood,  and 
hers  answered  again. 

Robert  did  not  say  anything  to  her  about  the  vale 
dictory  until  just  before  the  close  of  the  evening,  when 
their  last  dance  together  was  over. 

"I  am  sorry  I  did  not  have  a  chance  to  hear  your 
valedictory,"  he  said.  "I  could  not  come  early." 

Ellen  blushed  and  smiled,  and  made  the  conven 
tional  school-girl  response.  "  Oh,  you  didn't  miss  any 
thing,"  said  she. 

"I  am  sure  I  did,"  said  the  young  man,  earnestly. 
Then  he  looked  at  her  and  hesitated  a  little.  "  I  won 
der  if  you  would  be  willing  to  lend  it  to  me?"  he  said, 
then.  "  I  would  be  very  careful  of  it,  and  would  return 
it  immediately  as  soon  as  I  had  read  it.  I  should  be 
so  interested  in  reading  it." 

201 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Certainly,  if  you  wish/'  said  Ellen,  "  but  I  am  afraid 
you  won't  think  it  is  good." 

"Of  course  I  shall.  I  have  been  hearing  about  it, 
how  good  it  was,  and  how  you  broke  up  the  whole 
house." 

Ellen  blushed.  "Oh,  that  was  only  because  it  was 
the  valedictory.  They  always  clap  a  good  deal  for  the 
valedictory." 

"  It  was  because  it  was  you,  you  dear  beauty,"  thought 
the  young  man,  gazing  at  her,  and  the  impulse  to  take 
her  in  his  arms  and  kiss  that  blush  seized  upon  him. 
"I  know  they  applauded  your  valedictory  because  it 
was  worthy  of  it,"  said  he,  and  Ellen's  eyes  fell  before 
his,  and  the  blush  crept  down  over  her  throat,  and  up 
to  the  soft  toss  of  hair  on  her  temples.  The  two  were 
standing,  and  the  man  gazed  at  Ellen's  pink  amis  and 
neck  through  the  lace  of  her  dress,  those  incomparable 
curves  of  youthful  bloom  shared  by  a  young  girl  and  a 
rose;  he  gazed  at  that  noble,  fair  head  bent  not  so  much 
before  him  as  before  the  mystery  of  life,  of  which  a  per 
ception  had  come  to  her  through  his  eyes,  and  he  said 
to  himself  that  there  never  was  such  a  girl,  and  he  also 
wondered  if  he  saw  aright,  he  being  one  who  seldom 
entirely  lost  the  grasp  of  his  own  leash.  Having  the 
fancy  and  the  heart  of  a  young  man,  he  was  given  like 
others  of  his  kind  to  looking  at  every  new7  girl  who  at 
tracted  him  in  the  light  of  a  problem,  the  unknown 
quantity  being  her  possible  interest  for  him,  but  he 
always  worked  it  out  calmly.  He  kept  himself  out  of 
his  own  shadow,  when  it  came  to  the  question  of  emo 
tions,  in  something  the  same  fashion  that  his  uncle 
Norman  did.  Now,  looking  at  Ellen  Brewster  with 
the  whole  of  his  heart  setting  towards  her  in  obedience 
to  that  law  which  had  brought  him  into  being,  he  yet 
was  saying  quite  coolly  and  loudly  in  his  own  inner 
consciousness,  "Wait,  wait,  wait!  Wait  until  to- 

202 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

morrow,  see  how  you  feel  then.  You  have  felt  in  much 
this  way  before.  Wait!  Perhaps  you  don't  see  it 
as  it  is.  Wait!" 

He  realized  his  own  wisdom  all  the  more  clearly 
when  Ellen  led  him  to  the  settee  where  her  relatives 
sat  guarding  her  graduation  presents  and  her  precious 
valedictory.  She  presented  him  gracefully  enough. 
Ellen  knew  nothing  of  society  etiquette,  she  had  never 
introduced  such  a  young  gentleman  as  this  to  any  one 
in  her  life,  but  her  inborn  dignity  of  character  kept  her 
self-poise  perfect.  Still,  when  young  Lloyd  saw  the 
mother  coarsely  perspiring  and  fairly  aggressive  in 
her  delight  over  her  daughter,  when  poor  Andrew  hoped 
he  saw  him  well,  and  Mrs.  Zelotes  eyed  him  with  sharp 
approbation,  and  Eva,  conscious  of  her  shabbiness, 
bowed  with  a  stiff  toss  of  her  head  and  sat  back  sul 
lenly,  and  little  Amabel  surveyed  him  with  uncanny 
wisdom  divided  between  himself  and  Ellen,  he  became 
conscious  of  a  slight  disappearance  of  his  glamour.  He 
thanked  Ellen  most  heartily  for  the  privilege  which 
she  granted  him,  when  she  took  the  valedictory  from 
the  heap  of  flowers,  and  took  his  leave  with  a  bow 
which  made  Fanny  nudge  Andrew,  almost  before  the 
young  man's  back  was  turned. 

Then  she  looked  at  Ellen,  but  she  said  nothing.  A 
sudden  impulse  of  delicacy  prevented  her.  There  was 
something  about  this  beloved  daughter  of  hers  which 
all  at  once  seemed  strange  to  her.  She  began  to  as 
sociate  her  with  the  sacred  mystery  of  life  as  she  had 
never  done.  Then,  too,  there  was  the  more  superficial 
association  with  one  of  another  class  which  she  held 
in  outward  despite  but  inward  awe. 

Ellen  gathered  up  her  presents  into  her  lap,  and  sat 
there  a  few  minutes  through  the  last  dance,  which  she 
had  refused  to  Granville  Joy,  who  went  away  with  ner 
vous  alertness  for  another  girl,  and  nobody  spoke  to  her. 

203 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

When  young  Lloyd  and  Cynthia  Lennox  and  the 
others  left,  as  they  did  directly,  Fanny  murmured, 
"They've  gone,"  and  they  all  knew  what  she  meant. 
She  was  thinking — and  so  were  they  all,  except  Ellen — 
that  that  was  the  reason,  because  he  had  to  go,  that 
he  had  not  asked  Ellen  for  the  last  dance. 

As  for  Ellen,  she  sat  looking  at  her  gold  watch  and 
chain,  which  she  had  taken  out  of  the  case.  Her  face 
grew  intensely  sober,  and  she  did  not  notice  when  young 
Lloyd  left.  All  at  once  she  had  reflected  how  her  father 
had  never  owned  a  watch  in  his  whole  life,  though  he 
was  a  man,  but  he  had  given  one  to  her.  She  reflected 
how  he  had  so  little  work,  how  shabby  his  clothes  were, 
how  he  must  have  gone  without  himself  to  buy  this  for 
her.  and  the  girl  had  such  a  heart  of  gold  that  it  rose 
triumphantly  loyal  to  its  first  loves  and  tendernesses, 
and  her  father's  old,  worn  face  came  between  her  and 
that  of  the  young  man  who  might  become  her  lover. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE  day  after  Ellen's  graduation  there  might  have 
been  seen  a  touching  little  spectacle  passing  along 
the  main  street  of  Rowe  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  fore 
noon.  It  was  touching  because  it  gave  evidence  of 
that  human  vanity  common  to  all,  which  strives  to 
perpetuate  the  few  small,  good  things  that  come  into 
the  hard  lives  of  poor  souls,  and  strives  with  such  utter 
futility.  Ellen  held  up  her  fluffy  skirts  daintily,  the 
wind  caught  her  white  ribbons  and  the  loose  locks  of 
her  yellow  hair  under  her  white  hat.  She  carried  Cyn 
thia  Lennox's  basket  of  roses  on  her  arm,  and  each 
of  the  others  was  laden  with  bouquets.  Little  Ama 
bel  clasped  both  slender  arms  around  a  great  sheaf  of 
roses ;  the  thorns  pricked  through  her  thin  sleeves,  but 
she  did  not  mind  that,  so  upborne  with  the  elation  of 
the  occasion  was  she.  Her  small,  pale  face  gazed  over 
the  mass  of  bloom  with  challenging  of  admiration  from 
every  one  whom  she  met.  She  was  jealous  lest  any 
one  should  not  look  with  full  appreciation  of  Ellen. 

Ellen  was  the  one  in  the  little  procession  who  had  not 
unmixed  delight  in  it.  She  had  a  certain  shamefaced- 
ness  about  going  through  the  streets  in  such  a  fashion. 
She  avoided  looking  at  the  people  whom  she  met,  and 
kept  her  head  slightly  bent  and  averted,  instead  of  car 
rying  it  with  the  proud  directness  which  was  her  habit. 
She  felt  vaguely  that  this  was  the  element  of  purely  per 
sonal  vanity  which  degrades  a  triumph,  and  the  weak 
ness  of  delight  and  gloating  in  the  faces  of  her  relatives 
irritated  her.  It  was  a  sort  of  unveiling  of  love,  and 

205 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  girl  was  sensitive  enough  to  understand  it.  "Oh, 
mother,  I  don't  want  to  have  us  all  go  through  the  street 
with  all  these  flowers,  and  me  in  my  white  dress,"  she 
had  said.  She  had  looked  at  her  mother  with  a  shrinking 
in  her  e3^es  which  was  incomprehensible  to  the  other 
coarser-natured  woman. 

"Nonsense/'  she  had  said.  "Sometimes  you  have 
real  silly  notions,  Ellen."  Fanny  said  it  adoringly, 
for  even  silliness  in  this  girl  was  in  a  way  worshipful 
to  her.  Ellen,  with  her  heart  still  softened  almost  to  grief 
by  the  love  shown  her  on  the  day  before,  had  yielded, 
but  she  wras  glad  when  they  arrived  at  the  photograph 
studio.  She  had  particularly  dreaded  passing  Lloyd's, 
for  the  thought  came  to  her  that  possibly  young  Mr. 
Lloyd  might  see  her.  She  supposed  that  he  was  likely 
to  be  in  the  office.  When  they  passed  the  office- windows 
she  looked  the  other  \vay,  but  before  she  was  well  past, 
her  aunt  Eva  hit  her  violently  and  laughed  loudly. 
Ellen  shrank,  coloring  a  deep  crimson.  Then  her 
mother  also  laughed,  and  even  Amabel,  shrilly,  with 
precocious  recognition  of  the  situation.  Only  Mrs. 
Zelotes  stalked  along  in  silent  dignity. 

"  Don't  laugh  so  loud,  hell  hear  you,"  said  she,  se 
verely. 

"It  was  that  young  man  who  was  at  the  hall  last 
night,  and  he  was  looking  at  you  awful  sharp,"  said 
little  Amabel  to  Ellen,  squeezing  her  warm  arm,  and 
sending  out  that  shrill  peal  of  laughter  again. 

"Don't,  dear,"  said  Ellen.  She  felt  humiliated, 
and  the  more  so  because  she  was  ashamed  of  being  hu 
miliated  by  her  own  mother  and  aunt.  "Why  should 
I  be  so  sensitive  to  things  in  which  they  see  no  harm?" 
she  asked  herself,  reprovingly. 

As  for  young  Lloyd,  he  had,  ever  since  he  parted  with 
the  girl  the  night  before,  that  sensation  of  actual  con 
tact  which  survives  separation,  and  had  felt  the  light 

206 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

pressure  of  her  hand  in  his  all  night,  and  along  with  it 
that  ineffable  pain  of  longing  which  would  draw  the 
substance  of  a  dream  to  actuality  and  cannot.  He  saw 
her  with  her  coarsely  exultant  relatives,  the  inevitable 
blur  of  her  environments,  and  felt  himself  not  so  much 
disillusioned  as  confirmed.  He  had  been  constantly 
saying  to  himself,  when  the  girl's  face  haunted  his 
eyes,  and  her  hand  in  his  own,  that  he  was  a  fool,  that 
he  had  felt  so  before,  that  he  must  have,  that  there  was 
no  sense  in  it,  that  he  was  Robert  Lloyd,  and  she  a 
good  girl,  a  beautiful  girl,  but  a  common  sort  of  girl, 
born  of  common  people  to  a  common  lot.  "Now," 
he  said  to  himself,  with  a  kind  of  bitter  exultation, 
"there,  I  told  you  so."  The  inconceivable  folly  of  that 
glance  of  the  mother  at  him,  then  at  Ellen,  and  the 
meaning  laughter,  repelled  him  to  the  point  of  disgust. 
He  turned  his  back  to  the  window  and  resumed  his  work, 
but,  in  spite  of  himself,  the  pathos  of  the  picture  which 
he  had  seen  began  to  force  itself  upon  him,  and  he 
thought  almost  tenderly  and  forgivingly  that  she,  the 
girl,  had  not  once  looked  his  way.  He  even  wondered, 
pityingly,  if  she  had  been  mortified  and  annoyed  by 
her  mother's  behavior.  A  great  anger  on  Ellen's  be 
half  with  her  mother  seized  upon  him.  How  pretty 
she  did  look  moving  along  in  that  little  flower-laden 
procession,  he  thought,  how  very  pretty.  All  at  once 
a  desire  for  the  photograph  which  would  be  taken  seized 
him,  for  he  divined  the  photograph.  However,  he  said 
to  himself  that  he  would  send  back  the  valedictory 
which  he  had  not  yet  read  by  post,  with  a  polite  note, 
and  that  would  be  the  end. 

But  it  was  only  the  next  evening  that  Robert  Lloyd 
with  the  valedictory'  in  hand  got  off  the  trolley-car 
in  front  of  the  Brewster  house.  He  had  proved  to  him 
self  that  it  was  an  act  of  actual  rudeness  to  return  any 
thing  so  precious  and  of  so  much  importance  to  the 

207 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

owner  by  the  post,  that  he  ought  to  call  and  deliver  it  in 
person.  When  he  regained  his  equilibrium  from  the 
quick  sidewise  leap  from  the  car,  and  stood  hesitating 
a  little,  as  one  will  do  before  a  strange  house,  for  he  was 
not  quite  sure  as  to  his  bearings,  he  saw  a  white  blur 
as  of  feminine  apparel  in  the  front  doorway.  He  ad 
vanced  tentatively  up  the  little  path  between  two  rows 
of  flowering  bushes,  and  Ellen  rose. 

"Good-evening,  Mr.  Lloyd/'  she  said,  in  a  slightly 
tremulous  voice. 

"Oh,  good-evening,  Miss  Brewster/'  he  cried,  quick 
ly.  "  So  I  am  right !  I  was  not  sure  as  to  the  house. " 

"People  generally  tell  by  the  cherry-trees  in  the 
yard/'  replied  Ellen,  taking  refuge  from  her  timidity 
in  the  security  of  commonplace  observation,  as  she  had 
done  the  night  before,  giving  thereby  both  a  sense  of 
disappointment  and  elusiveness. 

"Won't  you  walk  in?"  she  added,  with  the  prim  po 
liteness  of  a  child  who  accosts  a  guest  according  to 
rule  and  precept.  Ellen  had  never,  in  fact,  had  a  young 
man  make  a  formal  call  upon  her  before.  She  reflected 
now,  both  with  relief  and  trepidation,  that  her  mother 
was  away,  having  gone  to  her  aunt  Eva's.  She  had 
an  instinct  which  she  resented,  that  her  mother  and 
this  young  man  were  on  two  parallels  which  could  never 
meet.  Her  father  was  at  home,  seated  in  the  south 
door  with  John  Sargent  and  Nahum  Deals  and  Joe 
Atkins,  but  she  never  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  her 
father's  receiving  a  young  man  caller,  though  she 
would  not  have  doubted  so  much  his  assimilating  with 
Robert  Lloyd.  She  understood  that  the  young  man 
might  look  at  her  mother  with  dissent,  while  she  re 
sented  it,  but  with  her  father  it  was  different. 

The  group  of  men  at  the  south  door  were  talking 
in  loud,  fervent  voices  which  seemed  to  rise  and  fall 
like  waves.  Nahum  Beals's  strained,  nervous  tones 

208 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

were  paramount.  "Mr.  Beals  is  talking  about  the 
labor  question,  and  he  gets  quite  excited,"  Ellen  re 
marked,  somewhat  apologetically,  as  she  ushered  young 
Lloyd  into  the  parlor. 

Lloyd  laughed.  "  It  sounds  as  if  he  were  leading 
an  army/'  he  said. 

"  He  is  very  much  in  earnest,"  said  the  girl. 

She  placed  painstakingly  for  her  guest  the  best  chair, 
which  was  a  spring  rocker  upholstered  with  crush- 
plush.  The  little  parlor  was  close  and  stuffy,  and  the 
kerosene-lamp,  with  the  light  dimmed  by  a  globe  dec 
orated  with  roses,  heated  the  room  still  further.  This 
lamp  was  Fanny's  pride.  It  had,  in  her  eyes,  the  dou 
ble  glory  of  high  art  and  cheapness.  She  was  fond 
of  pointing  at  it,  and  inquiring,  "How  much  do  you 
think  that  cost?"  and  explaining  with  the  air  of  one 
who  expects  her  truth  to  be  questioned  that  it  only  cost 
forty-nine  cents.  This  lamp  was  hideous,  the  shape 
was  aggressive,  a  discordant  blare  of  brass,  and  the 
roses  on  the  globe  were  blasphemous.  Somehow  this 
lamp  was  the  first  thing  which  struck  Lloyd  on  enter 
ing  the  room.  He  could  not  take  his  eyes  from  it.  As 
for  Ellen,  long  acquaintance  had  dulled  her  eyes.  She 
sat  in  the  full  glare  of  this  hideous  lamp,  and  Lloyd 
considered  that  she  was  not  so  pretty  as  he  had  thought 
last  night.  Still,  she  was  undeniably  very  pretty. 
There  was  something  in  the  curves  of  her  shoulders, 
in  her  pink-and-white  cotton  waist,  that  made  one's 
fingers  tingle,  and  heart  yearn,  and  there  was  an  appeal 
ing  look  in  her  face  which  made  him  smile  indulgently 
at  her  as  he  might  have  done  at  a  child.  After  all,  it 
was  probably  not  her  fault  about  the  lamp,  and  lamps 
were  a  minor  consideration,  and  he  was  finical,  but 
suppose  she  liked  it?  Lloyd,  sitting  there,  began  to 
speculate  if  it  were  possible  for  one's  spiritual  nature 
to  be  definitely  damaged  by  hideous  lamps.  Then  he 
o  209 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

caught  sight  of  a  plate  decorated  with  postage-stamps, 
with  a  perforated  edge  through  which  ribbons  were 
run,  and  he  wondered  if  she  possibly  made  that. 

"They  are  undoubtedly  perfectly  moral  people,"  he 
told  his  aunt  Cynthia  afterwards,  "  but  I  wonder  that 
they  keep  such  an  immoral  plate/'  However,  that 
was  before  he  fell  in  love  with  Ellen,  while  he  was  strug 
gling  with  himself  in  his  desire  to  do  so,  and  making 
all  manner  of  sport  of  himself  by  way  of  hindrance. 

Ellen  at  that  age  could  have  had  no  possible  conception 
of  the  sentiment  with  which  the  young  man  viewed  her 
environment.  She  was  sensitive  to  spiritual  discords 
which  might  arise  from  meeting  with  another  widely 
different  nature,  but  when  it  came  to  material  things, 
she  was  at  a  loss.  Then,  too,  she  was  pugnaciously 
loyal  to  the  glories  of  the  best  parlor.  She  was  inno 
cently  glad  that  she  had  such  a  nice  room  into  which 
to  usher  him.  She  felt  that  the  marble-top  table,  the 
plush  lambrequin  on  the  mantle-shelf,  the  gilded  vases, 
the  brass  clock,  the  Nottingham  lace  curtains,  the 
olive-and-crimson  furniture,  the  pictures  in  cheap  gilt 
frames,  the  heavily  gilded  wall-paper,  and  the  throws 
of  thin  silk  over  the  picture  corners  must  prove  to  him 
the  standing  of  her  family.  She  felt  an  ignoble  satis 
faction  in  it,  for  a  certain  measure  of  commonness 
clung  to  the  girl  like  a  cobweb.  She  was  as  yet  too 
young  to  bloom  free  of  her  environment,  her  head 
was  not  yet  over  the  barrier  of  her  daily  lot ;  her  heart 
never  would  be,  and  that  was  her  glory.  Young  Lloyd 
handed  her  the  roll  of  valedictory  as  soon  as  he  entered. 

"I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  allowing  me  to 
read  it,"  he  said. 

Ellen  took  it,  blushing.  Her  heart  sank  a  little. 
She  thought  to  herself  that  he  probably  did  not  like 
it.  She  looked  at  him  proudly  and  timidly,  like  a  child 
half  holding,  half  withdrawing  its  hand  for  a  sweet. 

210 


THE     P  O  R  T  I  O  X     O  F     L  A  B  O  R 

It  suddenly  came  to  her  that  she  would  rather  this 
\roung  man  would  praise  her  valedictory  than  any  one 
else,  that  if  he  had  been  present  when  she  read  it  in 
the  hall,  and  she  had  seen  him  standing  applauding, 
she  could  not  have  contained  her  triumph  and  pride. 
She  was  not  yet  in  love  with  him,  but  she  began  to  feel 
that  in  his  approbation  lay  the  best  coin  of  her  realm. 

"  It  is  very  well  written,  Miss  Brewster,"  said  Robert, 
and  she  flushed  with  delight. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

But  the  young  man  was  looking  at  her  as  if  he  had 
something  besides  praise  in  mind,  and  she  gazed  at  him, 
shrinking  a  little  as  before  a  blow  whose  motion  she 
felt  in  the  air.  However,  he  laughed  pleasantly  when 
he  spoke. 

"  Do  you  really  believe  that?"  he  asked. 

"  What?"  she  inquired,  vaguely. 

"Oh,  all  that  you  say  in  your  essay.  Do  you  really 
believe  that  all  the  property  in  the  world  ought  to  be 
divided,  that  kings  and  peasants  ought  to  share  and 
share  alike?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  round  eyes.  "  Why,  of  course 
I  do!"  she  said.  "  Don't  you?" 

Robert  laughed.  lie  had  no  mind  to  enter  into  an 
argument  with  this  beautiful  girl,  nor  even  to  express 
himself  forcibly  on  the  opposite  side. 

"  Well,  there  are  a  number  of  things  to  be  considered," 
he  said.  "And  do  you  really  believe  that  employer 
and  employes  should  share  alike?" 

"Why  not?"  said  she. 

Her  blue  eyes  flashed,  she  tossed  her  head.  Rob 
ert  smiled  at  her. 

"Why  not?"  she  repeated.  "Don't  the  men  earn 
the  money?" 

"Well,  no,  not  exactly,"  said  Robert.  "There  is 
the  capital." 

211 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABQ-' 

"  The  profit  comes  from  the  labor,  not  from  the  cap 
ital/'  said  Ellen,  quickly.  "  Doesn't  it?"  she  continued, 
with  fervor,  and  yet  there  was  a  charming  timidity,  as 
before  some  authority. 

"Possibly,"  replied  Robert,  guardedly;  "but  the 
question  is  how  far  we  should  go  back  before  we  stop 
in  searching  for  causes." 

"How  far  back  ought  we  to  go?"  asked  Ellen,  earn 
estly. 

"I  confess  I  don't  know,"  said  Robert,  laughingly. 
"I  have  thought  very  little  about  it  all." 

"But  you  will  have  to,  if  you  are  to  be  the  head  of 
Lloyd's,"  Ellen  said,  with  a  severe  accent,  with  grave, 
blue  eyes  full  on  his  face. 

"  Oh,  I  am  not  the  head  of  Lloyd's  yet,"  he  answered, 
easily.  "  My  uncle  is  far  from  his  dotage.  Then,  too, 
you  know  that  I  was  never  intended  for  a  business  man, 
but  a  lawyer,  like  my  father,  if  there  had  not  been  so 
little  for  my  father's  second  wife  and  the  children — " 
He  stopped  himself  abruptly  on  the  verge  of  a  confi 
dence.  "  I  think  I  saw  you  on  your  way  to  the  pho 
tographer  to-day,"  he  said,  and  Ellen  blushed,  remem 
bering  her  aunt  Eva's  violent  nudge,  and  wondering 
if  he  had  noticed.  She  gave  him  a  piteous  glance. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "All  the  girls  have  their  pictures 
taken  in  their  graduating  dresses  with  their  flowers." 

"You  looked  to  me  as  if  the  picture  would  be  a  great 
success,"  said  Robert.  He  longed  to  ask  for  one  and 
yet  did  not,  for  a  reason  unexplained  to  himself.  He 
knew  that  this  innocent,  unsophisticated  creature 
would  see  no  reason  on  earth  why  he  should  not  ask, 
and  no  reason  why  she  should  not  grant,  and  on  that 
account  he  felt  prohibited.  That  night,  after  .e  had 
gone,  Ellen  wondered  why  he  had  not  asked  for  one  of 
her  pictures,  and  felt  anxious  lest  he  should  H-  seen 
the  nudge. 


HE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Well/'  she  said  to  herself,  "if  he  finds  any  fault 
with  anything  that  my  mother  has  done,  I  don't  want 
him  to  have  one." 

Robert  stayed  a  long  time.  He  kept  thinking  that  he 
ought  to  go,  and  also  that  he  was  bored,  and  yet  he 
felt  a  singular  unwillingness  to  leave,  possibly  because 
of  his  sense  that  the  visit  was  in  a  measure  forbidden 
by  prudence.  The  longer  he  remained,  the  prettier 
Ellen  looked  to  him.  New  beauties  of  line  and  color 
seemed  to  grow  apparent  in  the  soft  glow  from  the  hide 
ous  lamp.  There  was  a  wonderful  starry  radiance 
in  her  eyes  now  and  then,  and  when  she  turned  her 
head  her  eyeballs  gleamed  crimson  and  her  hair  seemed 
to  toss  into  flame.  When  she  spoke,  he  was  conscious 
of  unknown  depths  of  sweetness  in  her  voice,  and  it 
was  so  with  her  smile  and  her  every  motion.  There 
was  about  the  girl  a  mystery,  not  of  darkness  but  of 
light,  which  seemed  to  draw  him  on  and  on  and  on  with 
out  volition.  And  yet  she  said  nothing  especially 
remarkable,  for  Ellen  was  only  a  young  girl,  reared 
in  a  little  provincial  city  in  common  environments. 
She  would  have  been  a  great  genius  had  she  more  than 
begun  to  glimpse  the  breadth  and  freedom  of  the  outer 
world  through  her  paling  of  life.  She  was  too  young  and 
too  unquestioning  of  what  she  had  learned  from  her 
early  loves. 

"  Have  you  always  lived  here  in  Rowe?"  asked  Lloyd. 

"Yes,"  said  she.  "I  was  born  here,  and  I  have 
lived  here  ever  since." 

"And  you  have  never  been  away?" 

"Only  once.  Once  I  went  to  Dragon  Beach  and 
stayed  F>  fortnight  with  mother."  She  said  this  with 
a  visibi  sense  of  its  importance.  Dragon  Beach  was 
some  ten  miles  from  Rowe,  a  cheap  seashore  place, 
built  x  rrith  flimsy  summer  cottages  of  factory  hands. 
Ar  id  hired  one  for  a  fortnight  once  when  Ellen 

. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

was  ailing,  and  it  had  been  the  event  of  a  lifetime  to 
the  family.  They  hereafter  dated  from  the  year  "we 
went  to  Dragon  Beach." 

Lloyd  looked  with  a  quick  impulse  of  compassion 
ate  tenderness  at  this  child  who  had  been  away  from 
Rowe  once  to  Dragon  Beach.  He  had  his  own  im 
pressions  of  Dragon  Beach  and  also  of  Rowe. 

"  I  suppose  you  enjoyed  that?"  said  he. 

"  Very  much.     The  sea  is  beautiful." 

So,  after  all,  it  was  the  sea  which  she  had  cared  for  at 
Dragon  Beach,  and  not  the  clam-bakes  and  merry-go- 
rounds  and  women  in  wrappers  in  the  surf.  Robert 
felt  rebuked  for  thinking  of  anything  but  the  sea  in 
his  memory  of  Dragon  Beach;  there  was  a  wonderful 
water-view  there. 

All  the  time  they  sat  there  in  the  parlor,  the  murmur 
of  conversation  at  the  south  door  continued,  and  now 
and  again  over  it  swelled  the  fervid  exhortations  of 
Nahum  Beals.  Not  a  word  could  be  distinguished, 
but  the  meaning  was  beyond  doubt.  That  voice  was 
full  of  denunciation,  of  frenzied  appeal,  of  warning. 

"Who  is  it?"  asked  Lloyd,  after  an  unusually  loud 
burst. 

"Mr.  Beals,"  replied  Ellen,  uneasily.  She  wished 
that  he  would  not  talk  so  loud. 

"  He  sounds  as  if  he  were  preaching  fire  and  brim 
stone,"  said  Robert. 

"No,  he  is  talking  about  the  labor  question,"  replied 
Ellen. 

Then  she  looked  confused,  for  she  remembered  that 
this  young  man's  uncle  was  the  head  of  Lloyd's,  that 
he  himself  would  be  the  head  of  Lloyd's  some  day. 
All  at  once,  along  with  another  feeling  which  seemed 
about  to  conquer  her,  came  a  resentment  against  this 
young  man  with  his  fine  clothes  and  his  gentle  manners. 
Two  men  passed  the  windows  and  one  of  them  looked 

214 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

in,  and  when  the  electric-light  flashed  on  his  face  she 
saw  Granville  Joy,  and  the  man  with  him  was  in  his 
shirt-sleeves.  She  saw  those  white  shirt-sleeves  swing 
into  the  darkness,  and  felt  at  once  antagonized  against 
herself  and  against  Robert,  and  yet  she  knew  that  she 
had  never  seen  a  man  like  him. 

"  I  suppose  he  has  settled  it,"  said  Robert. 

"  I  don't  know/'  replied  Ellen. 

"He  sounds  dangerous." 

"Oh,  no.  He  is  a  good  man.  He  wouldn't  hurt 
anybody.  He  has  always  talked  that  way.  He  used 
to  come  here  and  talk  when  I  was  a  child.  It  used  to 
frighten  me  at  first,  but  it  doesn't  now.  It  is  only  the 
way  that  poor  people  are  treated  that  frightens  me." 

Again  Robert  had  a  sensation  of  moving  unobtru 
sively  aside  from  a  direct  encounter.  He  looked  across 
the  room  and  started  at  something  which  he  espied  for 
the  first  time. 

"Pardon  me,"  he  said,  rising,  "but  I  am  interested 
in  dolls.  I  see  you  still  keep  your  doll,  Miss  Brew- 
ster." 

Ellen  sat  stupefied.  All  at  once  it  dawned  upon 
her  what  might  happen.  In  the  corner  of  the  parlor 
sat  her  beloved  doll,  still  beloved,  though  the  mother 
and  not  the  doll  had  outgrown  her  first  condition  of 
love.  The  doll,  in  the  identical  dress  in  which  she  had 
come  from  Cynthia's  so  many  years  ago,  sat  staring 
forth  with  the  fixed  radiance  of  her  kind,  seated  stiffly 
in  a  tiny  rocking-chair,  also  one  of  the  treasures  of 
Ellen's  childhood.  It  was  a  curious  feature  for  the 
best  parlor,  but  Ellen  had  insisted  upon  it.  "She 
isn't  going  to  be  put  away  up  garret  because  I  have 
outgrown  her,"  said  she.  "She's  going  to  sit  in  the 
parlor  as  long  as  she  lives.  Suppose  I  outgrew  you, 
and  put  you  up  in  the  garret ;  you  wouldn't  like  it,  would 
you,  mother?" 

215 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  are  a  queer  child/'  Fanny  had  said,  laughing, 
but  she  had  yielded. 

When  young  Lloyd  went  close  to  examine  the  doll, 
Ellen's  heart  stood  still.  Suppose  he  should  recog 
nize  it?  She  tried  to  tell  herself  that  it  was  impossible. 
Could  anjr  young  man  recognize  a  doll  after  all  those 
years?  How  much  did  a  boy  ever  care  for  a  doll,  any 
way?  Not  enough  to  think  of  it  twice  after  he  had 
given  it  up.  It  was  different  with  a  girl.  Her  doll 
meant — God  only  knew  what  her  doll  meant  to  her; 
perhaps  it  had  a  meaning  of  all  humanity.  But  the 
boy,  what  had  he  cared  for  the  doll?  He  had  gone 
away  out  West  and  left  it. 

But  Lloyd  remembered.  He  stared  down  at  the  doll 
a  moment.  Then  he  took  her  up  gingerly  in  her  fluffy 
pink  robes  of  an  obsolete  fashion.  He  held  her  at  arm's 
length,  and  stared  and  stared.  Suddenly  he  parted 
the  flaxen  wig  and  examined  a  place  on  the  head.  Then 
he  looked  at  Ellen. 

"Why,  it  is  my  old  doll,"  he  cried,  with  a  great  laugh 
of  wonder  and  incredulity.  "Yes,  it  is  my  old  doll! 
How  in  the  world  did  you  come  by  my  doll,  Miss 
Brewster?  Account  for  yourself.  Are  you  a  child 
kidnapper?" 

Ellen,  who  had  risen  and  come  forward,  stood  before 
him,  absolutely  still,  and  very  pale. 

"  Yes,  it  is  my  doll,"  said  Lloyd,  with  another  laugh. 
"I  will  tell  you  how  I  know.  Of  course  I  can  tell  her 
face.  Dolls  look  a  good  deal  alike,  I  suppose,  but  I 
tell  you  I  loved  this  doll,  and  I  remember  her  face,  and 
that  little  cast  in  her  left  eye,  and  that  beautiful,  serene 
smile ;  but  there's  something  besides.  Once  I  burned 
her  head  with  the  red-hot  end  of  the  poker  to  see  if  she 
would  wake  up.  I  always  had  a  notion  when  I  was  a 
child  that  it  was  only  a  question  of  violence  to  make  her 
wake  up  and  demonstrate  some  existence  besides  that 

216 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

eternal  grin.  So  I  burned  her,  but  it  made  no  differ 
ence  ;  but  here  is  the  mark  now— see/' 

Ellen  saw.  She  had  often  kissed  it,  but  she  made 
no  reph7.  She  was  occupied  with  considerations  of 
the  consequences. 

"  How  did  you  come  b}^  her,  if  you  don't  mind  telling?" 
said  the  young  man  again.  "  It  is  the  most  curious 
thing  for  me  to  find  my  old  doll  sitting  here.  Of  course 
Aunt  Cynthia  gave  her  to  you,  but  I  didn't  know  that 
she  was  acquainted  with  you.  I  suppose  she  saw  a 
pretty  little  girl  getting  around  without  a  doll  after 
I  had  gone,  and  sent  her,  but — " 

Suddenly  between  the  young  man's  face  and  the 
girl's  flashed  a  look  of  intelligence.  Suddenly  Robert 
remembered  all  that  he  had  heard  of  Ellen's  childish 
escapade.  He  knew,  fie  looked  from  her  to  the  doll, 
and  back  again.  "Good  Lord!"  he  said.  Then  he 
set  the  doll  down  in  her  little  chair  all  of  a  heap,  and 
caught  Ellen's  hand,  and  shook  it. 

"You  are  a  trump,  that  is  what  you  are,"  he  said; 
"  a  trump.  So  she —  He  shook  his  head,  and  looked 
at  Ellen,  dazedly.  She  did  not  say  a  word,  but  looked 
at  him  with  her  lips  closed  tightly. 

"  It  is  better  for  you  not  to  tell  me  anything,"  he  said  ; 
"  I  don't  want  to  know.  I  don't  understand,  and  I 
never  want  to,  how  it  all  happened,  but  I  do  understand 
that  you  are  a  trump.  How  old  were  you?"  Robert's 
voice  took  on  a  tone  of  tenderness. 

"Eight,"  replied  Ellen,  faintly. 

"Only  a  baby,"  said  the  young  man,  "and  you 
never  told!  I  would  like  to  know  where  there  is  an 
other  baby  who  would  do  such  a  thing."  He  caught 
her  hand  and  shook  it  again.  "  She  was  like  a  mother 
to  me/'  he  said,  in  a  husky  voice.  "I  think  a  good 
deal  of  her.  I  thank  you." 

Suddenly  to  the  young  man  looking  at  the  girl  a 

217 


THE     PORTION    OF     LABOR 

conviction  as  of  some  subtle  spiritual  perfume  came ;  he 
had  seen  her  beauty  before,  he  had  realized  her  charm, 
but  this  was  something  different.  A  boundless  appro 
bation  and  approval  which  was  infinitely  more  precious 
than  admiration  seized  him.  Her  character  began  to 
reveal  itself,  to  come  in  contact  with  his  own;  he  felt 
the  warmth  of  it  through  the  veil  of  flesh.  He  felt  a 
sense  of  reliance  as  upon  an  inexhaustibility  of  good 
ness  in  another  soul.  He  felt  something  which  was 
more  than  love,  being  purely  unselfish,  with  as  yet  no 
desire  of  possession.  "Here  is  a  good,  true  woman," 
he  said  to  himself.  "  Here  is  a  good,  true  woman,  who 
has  blossomed  from  a  good,  true  child."  He  saw  a 
wonderful  faithfulness  shining  in  her  blue  eyes,  he 
saw  truth  itself  on  her  lips,  and  could  have  gone  down 
at  the  feet  of  the  little  girl  in  the  pink  cotton  frock. 
Going  home  he  tried  to  laugh  at  himself,  but  could  not 
succeed.  It  is  easy  to  shake  off  the  clasp  of  a  hand  of 
flesh,  but  not  the  clasp  of  another  soul. 

Ellen  on  her  part  was  at  once  overwhelmed  with 
delight  and  confusion.  She  felt  the  fervor  of  admira 
tion  in  the  young  man's  attitude  towards  her,  but 
she  was  painfully  conscious  of  her  undeservingness. 
She  had  always  felt  guilty  about  her  silence  and  dis 
obedience  towards  her  parents,  and  as  for  any  self-ap 
probation  for  it,  that  had  been  the  farthest  from  her 
thoughts.  She  murmured  something  deprecatingly, 
but  Lloyd  cut  her  .short. 

" It's  no  use  crying  off/' said  he;  "you  are  one  girl 
in  a  thousand,  and  I  thank  you,  I  thank  you  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart.  It  might  have  made  awful  trouble. 
My  aunt  Lizzie  told  me  what  a  commotion  there  was 
over  it." 

"I  ran  away,"  said  Ellen,  anxiously.  Suddenly  it 
occurred  to  her  he  might  think  Cynthia  worse  than 
she  had  been. 

218 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Never  mind,"  said  Lloyd — "never  mind.  I  know 
what  you  did.  You  held  your  blessed  little  tongue  to 
save  somebody  else,  and  let  yourself  be  blamed." 

The  door  which  led  into  the  sitting-room  opened, 
and  Andrew  looked  in. 

He  made  a  shy  motion  when  he  saw  Lloyd ;  still,  he 
came  forward.  His  own  callers  had  gone,  and  he  had 
heard  voices  in  the  parlor,  and  had  feared  Granville 
Joy  was  calling  upon  Ellen. 

As  he  came  forward,  Ellen  introduced  him  shyly. 
"This  is  Mr.  Lloyd,  father,"  she  said.  "Mr.  Lloyd, 
this  is  my  father. "  Then  she  added,  "  He  came  to  bring 
back  my  valedictory."  She  was  very  awkward,  but 
it  was  the  charming  awkwardness  of  a  beautiful  child. 
She  looked  exceedingly  childish  standing  beside  her 
father,  looking  into  his  worn,  embarrassed  face. 

Llo37d  shook  hands  with  Andrew,  and  said  some 
thing  about  the  valedictory,  which  he  had  enjoyed 
reading. 

"  She  wrote  it  all  herself  without  a  bit  of  help  from 
the  teacher,"  said  Andrew,  with  wistful  pride. 

"It  is  remarkably  well  written,"  said  Robert. 

"  You  didn't  hear  it  read  at  the  hall?"  said  Andrew. 

"No,  I  had  not  that  good  fortune." 

"  You  ought  to  have  heard  them  clap,"  said  Andrew. 

"Oh,  father,"  murmured  Ellen,  but  she  looked  in 
nocently  at  her  father  as  if  she  delighted  in  his  pride 
and  pleasure  without  a  personal  consideration. 

The  front  door  opened.  "That's  your  mother," 
said  Andrew. 

Fanny  looked  into  the  lighted  parlor,  and  dodged 
back  with  a  little  giggle. 

Ellen  colored  painfully.  "It  is  Mr.  Lloyd,  mother," 
she  said. 

Then  Fanny  came  forward  and  shook  hands  with 
Robert.  Her  face  was  flaming — she  cast  involuntary 

219 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

glances  at  Andrew  for  confirmation  of  her  opinion. 
She  was  openly  and  shamelessly  triumphant,  and  yet 
all  at  once  Robert  ceased  to  be  repelled  by  it.  Through 
his  insight  into  the  girl's  character,  he  had  seemed 
to  gain  suddenly  a  clearer  vision  for  the  depths  of 
human  love  and  pity  which  are  beneath  the  coarse  and 
the  common.  When  Fanny  stood  beside  her  daughter 
and  looked  at  her,  then  at  Robert,  with  the  reflection 
of  the  beautiful  young  face  in  her  eyes  of  love,  she 
became  at  once  pathetic  and  sacred. 

"It  is  all  natural,"  he  said  to  himself  as  he   was 
going  home. 


CHAPTER  XX 

ROBERT  LLOYD  when  he  came  to  Rowe  was  con 
fronted  with  one  of  the  hardest  tasks  in  the  world, 
that  of  adjustment  to  circumstances  which  had  hitherto 
been  out  of  his  imagination.  He  had  not  dreamed  of  a 
business  life  in  connection  with  himself.  Though  he 
had  always  had  a  certain  admiration  for  his  successful 
uncle,  Norman  Lloyd,  yet  he  had  always  had  along 
with  the  admiration  a  recollection  of  the  old  tale  of  the 
birthright  and  the  mess  of  pottage.  He  had  expected 
to  follow  the  law,  like  his  father,  but  when  he  had  fin 
ished  college,  about  two  years  after  his  father's  death, 
he  had  to  face  the  unexpected.  The  stocks  in  which  the 
greater  part  of  the  elder  Lloyd's  money  had  been  in 
vested  had  depreciated ;  some  of  them  were  for  the  time 
being  quite  worthless  as  far  as  income  was  concerned. 
There  were  two  little  children — girls — by  his  father's 
second  marriage,  and  there  was  not  enough  to  support 
them  and  their  mother  and  allow  Robert  to  continue 
his  reading  for  the  law.  So  he  pursued,  without  the 
slightest  hesitation,  but  with  bitter  regret,  the  only 
course  which  he  saw  open  before  him.  He  wrote  to 
his  uncle  Norman,  and  was  welcomed  to  a  position  in 
his  factory  with  more  warmth  than  he  had  ever  seen 
displa3Ted  by  him.  In  fact,  Norman  Lloyd,  who  had 
no  son  of  his  own,  saw  with  a  quickening  of  his  pulses 
the  handsome  young  fellow  of  his  own  race  who  had  in 
a  measure  thrown  himself  upon  his  protection.  He  had 
never  shared  his  wife's  longing  for  children  as  children, 
and  had  never  cared  for  Robert  when  a  child ;  but  now, 

221 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

when  he  was  a  man  grown  and  bore  his  name,  he  ap 
pealed  to  him. 

Norman  Lloyd  was  supposed  to  be  heaping  up  riches, 
and  wild  stories  of  his  wealth  were  told  in  Rowe.  He 
gave  large  sums  to  public  benefactions,  and  never 
stinted  his  wife  in  her  giving  within  certain  limits. 
It  would  have  puzzled  am*  one  when  faced  with  facts 
to  understand  why  he  had  the  name  of  a  hard  man, 
but  he  had  it,  whether  justly  or  not.  "  He's  as  hard  as 
nails/'  people  said.  His  employe's  hated  him — that 
is,  the  more  turbulent  and  undisciplined  spirits  hated 
him,  and  the  others  regarded  him  as  slaves  might  a 
stern  master.  When  Robert  started  his  work  in  his 
uncle's  office  he  started  handicapped  by  this  sentiment 
towards  his  uncle.  He  looked  like  his  uncle,  he  talked 
like  him,  he  had  his  same  gentle  stiffness,  he  was  never 
unduly  familiar.  He  was  at  once  placed  in  the  same 
category  by  the  workmen. 

Robert  Lloyd  did  not  concern  himself  in  the  least 
as  to  what  the  employes  in  his  uncle's  factory  thought 
of  him.  Nothing  was  more  completely  out  of  his  mind. 
He  was  conscious  of  standing  on  a  firm  base  of  philan 
thropic  principle,  and  if  ever  these  men  came  directly 
under  his  control,  he  was  resolved  to  do  his  duty  by 
them  so  far  as  in  him  lay. 

Ellen,  since  her  graduation,  had  been  like  an  animal 
which  circles  about  in  its  endeavors  to  find  its  best  and 
natural  place  of  settlement. 

"What  shall  I  do  next?"  she  had  said  to  her  mother. 
"  Shall  I  go  to  work,  or  shall  I  try  to  find  a  school  some 
where  in  the  fall,  or  shall  I  stay  here,  and  help  you 
with  some  work  I  can  do  at  home?  I  know  father  can 
not  afford  to  support  me  always  at  home." 

"  I  guess  he  can  afford  to  support  his  only  daughter 
at  home  a  little  while  after  she  has  just  got  out  of 

222 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

school/'  Fanny  had  returned  indignantly,  with  a  keen 
pain  at  her  heart. 

Fanny  mentioned  this  conversation  to  Andrew  that 
night  after  Ellen  had  gone  to  bed. 

"  What  do  you  think — Ellen  was  asking  me  this  after 
noon  what  she1  had  better  do!"  said  she. 

"What  she  had  better  do?"  repeated  Andrew,  vague 
ly.  He  looked  shrinking!}?-  at  Fanny,  who  seemed  to 
him  to  have  an  accusing  air,  as  if  in  some  way  he  were 
to  blame  for  something.  And,  indeed,  there  were  times 
when  Fanny  in  those  days  did  blame  Andrew,  but  there 
was  some  excuse  for  her.  She  blamed  him  when  her 
own  back  was  rilling  her  very  soul  with  the  weariness 
of  its  ache  as  she  bent  over  the  seams  of  those  grinding 
wrappers,  and  when  her  heart  was  sore  over  doubt  of 
Ellen's  future.  At.  those  times  she  acknowledged  to 
herself  that  it  seemed  to  her  that  Andrew  somehow 
might  have  gotten  on  better.  She  did  not  know 
how,  but  somehow.  He  had  not  had  an  expensive 
family.  "Why  had  he  not  succeeded?"  she  asked 
herself.  So  there  was  in  her  tone  an  unconscious 
recrimination  when  she  answered  his  question  about 
Ellen. 

"Yes — what  she  had  better  go  to  work  at,"  said 
Fanny,  dryly,  her  black  eyes  cold  on  her  husband's 
face. 

Andrew  turned  so  white  that  he  frightened  her.  "  Go 
to  work!"  said  he.  Then  all  at  once  he  gave  an  ex 
ceedingly  loud  and  bitter  groan.  It  betrayed  all  his 
pride  in  and  ambition  for  his  daughter  and  his  disgust 
and  disappointment  over  himself.  "  Oh !  my  God,  has 
it  come  to  this,"  he  groaned,  "that  I  cannot  support 
my  one  child!" 

Fanny  laid  down  her  work  and  looked  at  him.  "  Now, 
Andrew,"  said  she,  "there's  no  use  in  your  taking  it 
after  such  a  fashion  as  this.  I  told  Ellen  that  it  was 

223 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

all  nonsense — thai  she  could  stay  at  home  and  rest  this 
summer. 

"I  guess,  if  she  can't — "  said  Andrew.  He  dropped 
his  gray  head  into  his  hands,  and  began  to  sob  dryly. 
Fanny,  after  staring  at  him  a  moment,  tossed  her  work 
onto  the  floor,  went  over  to  him,  and  drew  his  head  to 
her  shoulder. 

"There,  old  man,"  said  she,  "ain't  you  ashamed 
of  yourself?  I  told  her  there  was  no  need  for  her  to 
worry  at  present.  Don't  do  so,  Andrew;  you've  done 
the  best  you  could,  and  I  know  it,  if  I  stop  to  think, 
though  I  do  seem  sort  of  impatient  sometimes.  You've 
always  worked  hard  and  done  your  best.  It  ain't  your 
fault." 

"I  don't  kno\v  whether  it  is  or  not,"  said  Andrew, 
in  a  high,  querulous  voice  like  a  woman's.  "  It  seems 
as  if  it  must  be  somebody's  fault.  If  it  ain't  my  fault, 
whose  is  it?  You  can't  blame  the  Almighty." 

"Maybe  it  ain't  anybody's  fault." 

"It  must  be.  All  that  goes  wrong  is  somebody's 
fault.  It  can't  be  that  it  just  happens — that  would  be 
worse  than  the  other.  It  is  better  to  have  a  God  that 
is  cruel  than  one  that  don't  care,  and  it  is  better  to 
be  to  blame  yourself,  and  have  it  your  fault,  than  His. 
Somehow,  I  have  been  to  blame,  Fanny.  I  must  have. 
It  would  have  been  enough  sight  better  for  you,  Fanny, 
if  you'd  married  another  man." 

"I  didn't  want  another  man,"  replied  Fanny,  half 
angrily,  half  tenderly.  "  You  make  me  all  out  of  pa 
tience,  Andrew  Brewster.  What's  the  need  of  Ellen 
going  to  work  right  away?  Maybe  by-and-by  she  can 
get  an  easy  school.  Then,  we've  got  that  money  in 
the  bank."" 

Andrew  looked  away  from  her  with  his  face  set. 
Fanny  did  not  know  yet  about  his  withdrawal  of  the 
money  for  the  purpose  of  investing  in  mining-stocks. 

224 


T  H  E     P  0  R  T ION     OF     LABOR 

He  never  looked  at  her  but  the  guilty  secret  seemed 
to  force  itself  between  them  like  a  wedge  of  ice. 

"Then  Grandma  Brewster  has  got  a  little  some 
thing/'  said  Fanny. 

"Only  just  enough  for  herself,"  said  Andrew.  Then 
he  added,  fiercely,  "  Mother  can't  be  stinted  of  her  little 
comforts  even  for  Ellen." 

"  I  'ain't  never  wanted  to  stint  your  mother  of  her 
comforts,"  Fanny  retorted,  angrily. 

"  She  'ain't  got  but  a  precious  little,  unless  she  spends 
her  principal,"  said  Andrew.  "She  'ain't  got  more'n 
a  hundred  and  fifty  or  so  a  year  clear  after  her  taxes 
and  insurance  are  paid." 

"I  ain't  saying  anything,"  said  Fanny.  "But  I  do 
say  you're  dreadful  foolish  to  take  on  so  when  you've 
got  so  much  to  fall  back  on,  and  that  money  in  the 
bank.  Here  you  haven't  had  to  touch  the  interest  for 
quite  a  while  and  it  has  been  accumulating." 

It  was  agreed  between  the  two  that  Ellen  must  say 
nothing  to  her  grandmother  Brewster  about  going  to 
work. 

"  I  believe  the  old  lady  would  have  a  fit  if  she  thought 
Ellen  was  going  to  work,"  said  Fanny.  "She  'ain't 
never  thought  she  ought  to  lift  her  finger." 

So  Ellen  was  charged  on  no  account  to  say  anything 
to  her  grandmother  about  the  possible  necessity  of  her 
going  to  work. 

"Your  grandmother's  awful  proud,"  said  Fanny, 
"and  she's  always  thought  you  were  too  good  to  work." 

"  I  don't  think  anybody  is  too  good  to  work,"  replied 
Ellen,  but  she  uttered  the  platitude  with  a  sort  of  men 
tal  reservation.  In  spite  of  herself,  the  attitude  of  wor 
ship  in  which  she  had  always  seen  all  who  belonged 
to  her  had  spoiled  her  a  little.  She  did  look  at  herself 
with  a  sort  of  compunction  when  she  realized  the  fact 
that  she  might  have  to  go  to  work  in  the  shop  some 

225 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

time.  School-teaching  was  different,  but  could  she 
earn  enough  school-teaching?  There  was  a  sturdy 
vein  in  the  girl.  All  the  time  she  pitied  herself  she 
blamed  herself. 

"  You  come  of  working-people,  Ellen  Brewster.  Why 
are  you  any  better  than  they?  Why  are  your  hands 
any  better  than  their  hands,  your  brain  than  theirs? 
Why  are  you  any  better  than  the  other  girls  who  have 
gone  to  work  in  the  shops?  Do  you  think  you  are 
any  better  than  Abby  Atkins?" 

And  still  Ellen  used  to  look  at  herself  with  a  pitying 
conviction  that  she  would  be  out  of  place  at  a  bench 
in  the  shoe-factory,  that  she  would  suffer  a  certain 
indignity  by  such  a  course.  The  realization  of  a  better 
birthright  was  strong  upon  her,  although  she  chided 
herself  for  it.  And  everybody  abetted  her  in  it.  When 
she  said  once  to  Abby  Atkins,  whom  she  encountered 
one  day  going  home  from  the  shop,  that  she  wondered 
if  she  could  get  a  job  in  her  room  in  the  fall,  Abby 
turned  upon  her  fiercely. 

"  Good  Lord,  Ellen  Brewster,  you  ain't  going  to  work 
in  a  shoe-shop?"  she  said. 

"  I  don't  see  why  not  as  well  as  you,"  returned  Ellen. 

"Why  not?"  repeated  the  other  girl.  "Look  at 
yourself,  and  look  at  us!" 

As  she  spoke,  Ellen  saw  projected  upon  her  mental 
vision  herself  passing  down  the  street  with  the  throng 
of  factory  operatives  which  her  bodily  eyes  actually 
witnessed.  She  had  come  opposite  Lloyd's  as  the 
six  o'clock  whistle  was  blowing.  She  saw  herself  in 
her  clean,  light  summer  frock,  slight  and  dainty,  with 
little  hands  like  white  flowers  in  the  blue  folds  of  her 
skirt,  with  her  fine,  sensitive  outlook  of  fair  face,  and 
her  dainty  carriage;  and  she  saw  others — those  girls 
and  women  in  dingy  skirts  and  bagging  blouses,  with 
coarse  hair  strained  into  hard  knots  of  exigency  from 

226 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

patient,  or  sullen  faces,  according  to  their  methods  of 
bearing  their  lots;  all  of  them  rank  with  the  smell  of 
leather,  their  coarse  hands  stained  with  it,  swinging 
their  poor  little  worn  bags  which  had  held  their  dinners. 
There  were  not  many  foreigners  among  them,  except 
the  Irish,  most  of  whom  had  been  born  in  this  country, 
and  a  sprinkling  of  fair-haired,  ruddy  Swedes  and 
keen  Polanders,  who  bore  themselves  better  than  the 
Americans,  being  not  so  apparently  at  odds  with  the 
situation. 

The  factory  employes  in  Rowe  were  a  superior  lot, 
men  and  women.  Many  of  the  men  had  put  on  their 
worn  coats  when  they  emerged  from  the  factory,  and 
their  little  bags  were  supposed  to  disguise  the  fact  of 
their  being  dinner  satchels.  And  yet  there  was  a  dif 
ference  between  Ellen  Brewster  and  the  people  among 
whom  she  walked,  and  she  felt  it  with  a  sort  of  pride 
and  indignation  with  herself  that  it  was  so. 

"  I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  any  better  than  the  rest," 
said  she,  defiantly,  to  Abby  Atkins.  "  My  father 
works  in  a  shop,  and  3'ou  are  my  best  friend,  and  you 
do.  Why  shouldn't  I  work  in  a  shop?" 

"  Look  at  yourself,"  repeated  the  other  girl,  merciless 
ly.  "You  are  different.  You  ain't  to  blame  for  it 
any  more  than  a  flower  is  to  blame  for  being  a  rose 
and  not  a  common  burdock.  If  you've  got  to  do  any 
thing,  you  had  better  teach  school." 

"I  would  rather  teach  school,"  said  Ellen,  "but  I 
couldn't  earn  so  much  unless  I  got  more  education 
and  got  a  higher  position  than  a  district  school,  and 
that  is  out  of  the  question." 

"  I  thought  maybe  your  grandmother  could  send 
you,"  said  Abby. 

"  Oh  no,  grandma  can't  afford  to.  Sometimes  I  think 
I  could  work  my  own  way  through  college,  if  it  wasn't 
for  being  a  burden  in  the  mean  time,  but  I  don't  know." 

227 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Suddenly  Abby  Atkins  planted  herself  on  the  side 
walk  in  front  of  Ellen,  and  looked  at  her  sharply,  while 
an  angry  flush  overspread  her  face. 

"I  want  to  know  one  thing,"  said  she. 

"What?" 

"  It  ain't  true  what  I  heard  the  other  day,  is  it?" 

*I  don't  know  what  you  heard." 

"Well,  I  heard  you  were  going  to  be  married." 

Ellen  turned  quite  pale,  and  looked  at  the  other  girl 
with  a  steady  regard  of  grave,  indignant  blue  eyes. 

"No,  I  am  not,"  said  she. 

"Well,  don't  be  mad,  Ellen.  I  heard  real  straight 
that  you  were  going  to  marry  Granville  Joy  in  the  fall. " 

"Well,  I  am  not,"  repeated  Ellen. 

"  I  didn't  suppose  you  were,  but  I  knew  he  had  always 
wanted  you." 

"Always  wanted  me!"  said  Ellen.  "Why,  he's 
only  just  out  of  school!" 

"  Oh,  I  know  that,  and  he's  only  just  gone  to  work, 
and  he  can't  be  earning  much,  but  I  heard  it." 

The  stream  of  factory  operatives  had  thinned ;  many 
had  taken  the  trollej^-cars,  and  others  had  gone  to  the 
opposite  side  of  the  street,  which  was  shady.  The  two 
girls  were  alone,  standing  before  a  vacant  lot  grown 
to  weeds,  rank  bristles  of  burdock,  and  slender  spikes 
of  evanescent  succory.  Abby  burst  out  in  a  passionate 
appeal,  clutching  Ellen's  arm  hard. 

"Ellen,  promise  me  you  never  will,"  she  cried. 

"Promise  you  what,  Abby?" 

"Oh,  promise  me  you  never  will  marry  anybody 
like  him.  I  know  it's  none  of  my  business — I  know 
that  is  something  that  is  none  of  anybody's  business, 
no  matter  how  much  they  think  of  anylxx^y;  but  I 
think  more  of  you  than  any  man  ever  will,  I  don't  care 
who  he  is.  I  know  I  do,  Ellen  Brewster.  And  don't 
you  ever  marry  a  man  like  Granville  Joy,  just  an  or- 

228 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

clinary  man  who  works  in  the  shop,  and  will  never  do 
anything  but  work  in  the  shop.  I  know  he's  good,  real 
good  and  steady,  and  it  ain't  against  him  that  he  ain't 
rich  and  has  to  work  for  his  living,  but  I  tell  you,  Ellen 
Brewstcr,  you  ain't  the  right  sort  to  marry  a  man  like 
that,  and  have  a  lot  of  children  to  work  in  shops.  No 
man,  if  he  thinks  anything  of  you,  ought  to  ask  you 
to;  but  all  a  man  thinks  of  is  himself.  Granville  Joy, 
or  any  other  man  who  wanted  you,  would  take  you 
and  spoil  you,  and  think  he'd  done  a  smart  thing." 
Abby  spoke  with  such  intensity  that  it  redeemed  her 
from  coarseness.  Ellen  continued  to  look  at  her,  and 
two  red  spots  had  come  on  her  cheeks. 

"  I  don't  believe  I'll  ever  get  married  at  all,"  she  said. 

"  If  you've  got  to  get  married,  you  ought  to  marry 
somebody  like  jToung  Mr.  Lloyd,"  said  Abby. 

Then  Ellen  blushed,  and  pushed  past  her  indignantly. 

"Young  Mr.  Lloyd!"  said  she.  "I  don't  want  him, 
and  he  doesn't  want  me.  I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk 
so,  Abby." 

"He  would  want  3^011  if  you  were  a  rich  girl,  and 
your  father  was  boss  instead  of  a  workman,"  said 
Abby. 

Then  she  caught  hold  of  Ellen's  arm  and  pressed  her 
own  thin  one  in  its  dark-blue  cotton  sleeve  lovingly 
against  it. 

"You  ain't  mad  with  me,  are  3rou,  Ellen?"  she  said, 
with  that  indescribable  gentleness  tempering  her  fierce 
ness  of  nature  which  gave  her  caresses  the  fascina 
tion  of  some  little,  untamed  animal.  Ellen  pressed  her 
round  young  arm  tenderly  against  the  other. 

"  I  think  more  of  you  than  any  man  I  know/'  said  she, 
fervently.  "  I  think  more  of  you  than  anybody  except 
father  and  mother,  Abby." 

The  two  girls  walked  on  with  locked  arms,  and  each 
was  possessed  with  that  wholly  artless  and  ignorant 

229 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

passion  often  seen  between  two  young  girls.  Abby  felt 
Ellen's  warm  round  arm  against  hers  with  a  throbbing 
of  rapture,  and  glanced  at  her  fair  face  with  adoration. 
She  held  her  in  a  sort  of  worship,  she  loved  her  so 
that  she  was  fairly  afraid  of  her.  As  for  Ellen,  Abby's 
little,  leather -stained,  leather  -scented  figure,  strung 
with  passion  like  a  bundle  of  electric  wire,  pressing 
against  her,  seemed  to  inform  her  farthest  thoughts. 

"If  I  live  longer  than  my  father  and  mother,  we'll 
live  together,  Abby,"  said  she. 

"  And  I'll  work  for  you,  Ellen,"  said  Abby,  rapt 
urously. 

"I  guess  you  won't  do  all  the  work,"  said  Ellen. 
She  gazed  tenderly  into  Abby's  little,  dark,  thin  face. 
"You're  all  worn  out  with  work  now,"  said  she,  "and 
there  you  bought  that  beautiful  pin  for  me  with  your 
hard  earnings." 

"I  wish  it  had  been  a  great  deal  better,"  said  Abby, 
fervently. 

She  had  given  Ellen  a  gold  brooch  for  a  graduating- 
gift,  and  had  paid  a  week's  wages  for  it,  and  gone 
without  her  new  dress,  and  stayed  away  from  the  grad 
uation,  but  that  last  Ellen  never  knew;  Abby  had  told 
her  that  she  was  sick. 

That  evening  Robert  Lloyd  and  his  aunt  Cynthia 
Lennox  called  on  the  Brewsters.  Ellen  was  under  the 
trees  in  the  west  yardVhen  she  heard  a  carriage  stop 
in  front  of  the  house  and  saw  the  sitting-room  lamp 
travel  through  the  front  entry  to  the  front  door.  She 
wondered  indifferently  who  it  was.  Carriages  were  not 
given  to  stopping  at  their  house  of  an  evening ;  then 
she  reflected  that  it  might  be  some  one  to  get  her 
mother  to  do  some  sewing,  and  remained  still. 

It  was  a  bright  moonlight:  night;  the  whole  yard 
was  a  lovely  dapple  of  lights  and  shadows.  Ellen 

230 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

had  a  vivid  perception  of  the  beauty  of  it  all,  and  also 
that  unrest  and  yearning  which  comes  often  to  a  young 
girl  in  moonlight.  This  beauty  and  strangeness  of 
familiar  scenes  under  the  silver  glamour  of  the  moon 
gave  her,  as  it  were,  an  assurance  of  other  delights 
and  beauties  of  life  besides  those  which  she  already 
knew,  and  along  with  the  assurance  came  that  wild 
yearning.  Ellen  seemed  to  scent  her  honey  of  life, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  hunger  for  it  leaped  to  her 
consciousness.  She  had  begun  by  thinking  of  what 
Abby  had  said  to  her  that  afternoon,  and  then  the  train 
of  thought  led  her  on  and  on.  She  quite  ignored  all 
about  the  sordid  ways  and  means  of  existence,  about 
toil  and  privation  and  children  born  to  it.  All  at  once 
the  conviction  was  strong  upon  her  that  love,  and  love 
alone,  was  the  chief  end  and  purpose  of  life,  at  once  its 
source  and  its  result,  the  completion  of  its  golden  ring 
of  glory.  Her  thought,  started  in  whatever  direction, 
seemed  to  slide  always  into  that  one  all-comprehending 
circle — she  could  not  get  her  imagination  away  from  it. 
She  began  to  realize  that  the  mind  of  mortal  man  could 
not  get  away  from  the  law  which  produced  it.  She  be 
gan  to  understand  dimly,  as  one  begins  to  understand 
any  great  truth,  that  everything  around  her  obeyed  that 
unwritten  fundamental  law  of  love,  expressed  it,  sound 
ed  it,  down  to  the  leaves  of  the  trees  casting  their  flick 
ering  shadows  on  the  silver  field  of  moonlight,  and  the 
long-drawn  chorus  of  the  insects  of  the  summer  night. 
She  thought  of  Abby  and  how  much  she  loved  her ;  then 
that  love  seemed  the  step  which  gave  her  an  impetus  to 
another  love.  She  began  to  remember  Granville  Joy,  how 
he  had  kissed  her  that  night  over  the  fence  and  twice 
since,  how  he  had  walked  home  with  her  from  entertain 
ments,  how  he  had  looked  at  her.  She  saw  the  boy's  face 
and  his  look  as  plain  as  if  he  stood  before  her,  and  her 
heart  leaped  with  a  shock  of  pain  which  was  joy. 

231 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Then  she  thought  of  Robert  Lloyd,  and  his  face 
came  before  her.  Ellen  had  not  thought  as  much 
of  Robert  as  he  of  her.  For  some  two  weeks  after  his 
call  she  had  watched  for  him  to  come  again ;  she  had 
put  on  a  pretty  dress  and  been  particular  about  her  hair, 
and  had  stayed  at  home  expecting  him;  then  when  he 
had  not  come,  she  had  put  him  out  of  mind  resolutely. 
When  her  mother  and  aunt  had  joked  her  about  him 
she  had  been  sensitive  and  half  angry.  "You  know 
it  is  nothing,  mother,"  she  said;  "he  only  came  to 
bring  back  my  valedictory.  You  know  he  wouldn't 
think  of  me.  He'll  marry  somebody  like  Maud  Hem 
ingway."  Maud  Hemingway  was  the  daughter  of 
the  leading  physician  in  Rowe,  and  regarded  with  a 
mixture  of  spite  and  admiration  by  daughters  of  the 
factory  operatives.  Maud  Hemingway  was  attending 
college,  and  rode  a  saddle-horse  when  home  on  her 
vacations.  She  had  been  to  Europe. 

But  that  evening  in  the  moonlight  Ellen  began 
thinking  again  of  Robert  Lloyd.  His  face  came  before 
her  as  plainly  as  Granville  Joy's.  She  had  arrived  at 
that  stage  when  life  began  to  be  as  a  picture-gallery 
of  love.  Through  this  and  that  face  the  goddess  might 
look,  and  the  look  was  what  she  sought;  as  yet,  the 
man  was  a  minor  quantity. 

All  at  once  it  seemed  to  Ellen,  looking  at  her  mental 
picture  of  young  Lloyd,  that  she  could  see  love  in  his 
face  yet  more  plainly,  more  according  to  her  conception 
of  it,  than  in  the  other.  She  began  to  build  an  air- 
castle  which  had  no  reference  whatever  to  Robert's 
position,  and  to  his  being  the  nephew  of  the  richest 
factory-owner  in  Rowe,  and  so  far  as  that  went  he  had 
not  a  whit  the  advantage  of  Granville  Joy  in  her  eyes. 
But  Robert's  face  wore  to  her  more  of  the  guise  of  that 
for  which  the  night  and  the  moonlight,  and  her  youth, 
had  made  her  long.  So  she  began  innocently  to  imag- 

232 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOU 

ine  a  meeting  with  him  at  a  picnic  which  would  be  held 
some  time  at  Liberty  Park.  She  imagined  their  walk 
ing  side  by  side,  through  a  lovely  dapple  of  moonlight 
like  this,  and  saying  things  to  each  other.  Then  all 
at  once  the  man  of  her  dreams  touched  her  hand  in  a 
dream,  and  a  faintness  swept  over  her.  Then  sud 
denly,  gathering  shape  out  of  the  indetermination  of 
the  shadows  and  the  moonlight,  came  a  man  into  the 
yard,  and  Ellen  thought  with  awe  and  delight  that  it 
was  he;  but  instead  Granville  Joy  stood  before  her, 
lifting  his  hat  above  his  soft  shock  of  hair. 

"Hullo!"  he  said. 

"Good-evening/'  responded  Ellen,  and  Granville 
Joy  felt  abashed.  He  lay  awake  half  the  night  re- 
ilecting  that  he  should  have  greeted  her  with  a  "  Good- 
evening"  instead  of  "Hullo/'  as  he  had  been  used  to 
do  in  their  school-days;  that  she  was  now  a  young 
lady,  and  that  Mr.  Lloyd  had  accosted  her  differently. 
Ellen  rose  with  a  feeling  of  disappointment  that  Gran 
ville  was  himself,  which  is  the  hardest  greeting  possible 
for  a  guest,  involving  the  most  subtle  reproach  in  the 
world — the  reproach  for  a  man's  own  individuality. 

"Oh,  don't  get  up,  Ellen/'  the  young  man  said, 
awkwardly.  "Here — I'll  sit  down  here  on  the  rock." 
Then  he  flung  himself  down  on  the  ledge  of  rock  which 
cropped  out  like  a  bare  rib  of  the  earth  between  the 
trees,  and  Ellen  seated  herself  again  in  her  chair. 

"Beautiful  night,  ain't  it?"  said  Granville. 

Ellen  noticed  that  Granville  said  "ain't"  instead  of 
"isn't,"  according  to  the  fashion  of  his  own  family, 
although  he  was  recently  graduated  from  the  high- 
school.  Ellen  had  separated  herself,  although  with 
no  disparaging  reflections,  from  the  language  of  her 
family.  She  also  noticed  that  Granville  presently  said 
"  wa'n't "  instead  of  "  wasn't. "  "  Hot  yesterday,  wa'n't 
it?"  said  he. 

233 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"Yes,  it  was  very  warm/'  replied  Ellen.  That 
"  wa'n't "  seemed  to  insert  a  tiny  wedge  between  them. 
She  would  have  flown  at  any  one  who  had  found  fault 
with  her  father  and  mother  for  saying  "  wa'n't,"  but 
with  this  young  man  in  her  own  rank  and  day  it  was 
different.  It  argued  something  in  him,  or  a  lack  of 
something.  An  indignation  all  out  of  proportion  to  the 
offence  seized  her.  It  seemed  to  her  that  he  had  in 
this  simple  fashion  outraged  that  which  was  infinitely 
higher  than  he  himself.  He  had  not  lived  up  to  her 
thought  of  him,  and  fallen  short  by  a  little  slip  in  Eng 
lish  which  argued  a  slip  in  character.  She  wanted  to 
reproach  him  sharply — to  ask  him  if  he  had  ever  been 
to  school. 

He  noticed  her  manner  was  cool,  and  was  as  far  as 
the  antipodes  from  suspecting  the  cause.  He  never 
knew  that  he  said  "ain't"  and  "wa'n't,"  and  would 
die  not  knowing.  All  that  he  looked  at  was  the  sub 
stance  of  thought  behind  the  speech.  And  just  then 
he  was  farther  than  ever  from  thinking  of  it,  for  he 
was  single-hearted  with  Ellen. 

The  boy  crept  nearer  her  on  the  rock  with  a  shy,  nest 
ling  motion;  the  moonlight  shone  full  on  his  handsome 
young  face,  giving  it  a  stern  quality.  "  Ellen,  look  at 
here,"  he  said. 

Then  he  stopped.  Ellen  waited,  not  dreaming  what 
was  to  follow.  She  had  never  had  a  proposal;  then, 
too,  he  had  just  been  chased  out  of  her  mental  perspec 
tive  by  the  other  man. 

"Look  at  here,  Ellen,"  said  Granville.  He  stopped 
again ;  then  when  he  spoke  his  voice  had  an  indescrib 
ably  solemn,  beseeching  quality.  "Oh,  Ellen,"  he 
said,  reaching  up  and  catching  her  hand.  He  dragged 
himself  nearer,  leaned  his  cheek  against  her  hand, 
which  it  seemed  to  burn ;  then  he  began  kissing  it  with 
soft,  pouting  lips. 

234 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  tried  to  pull  her  hand  away.  "Let  my  hand 
go  this  minute,  Granville  Joy/'  she  said,  angrily. 

The  boy  let  her  hand  go  immediately,  and  stood  up, 
leaning  over  her. 

"Don't  be  angry;  I  didn't  mean  any  harm,  Ellen," 
he  whispered. 

"  I  shall  be  angry  if  you  do  such  a  thing  again,"  said 
Ellen.  "We  aren't  children;  you  have  no  right  to  do 
such  a  thing,  and  you  know  it." 

"But  I  thought  maybe  you  wouldn't  mind,  Ellen," 
said  Granville.  Then  he  added,  with  his  voice  all 
husky  with  emotion  and  a  kind  of  fear:  "Ellen,  you 
know  how  I  feel  about  you.  You  know  how  I  have 
always  felt." 

Ellen  made  no  reply.  It  seemed  inconceivable  that 
she  for  the  minute  should  not  know  his  meaning,  but 
she  was  bewildered. 

"You  know  I've  always  counted  on  havin'  you  for 
my  wife  some  day  when  we  were  both  old  enough," 
said  the  boy,  "and  I've  gone  to  work  now,  and  I  hope 
to  get  bigger  pay  before  long,  and — " 

Ellen  rose  with  sudden  realization.  "Granville 
Joy,"  cried  she,  with  something  like  panic  in  her  voice, 
"  you  must  not !  Oh,  if  I  had  known  1  I  would  not 
have  let  you  finish.  I  would  not,  Granville."  She 
caught  his  arm,  and  clung  to  it,  and  looked  up  at  him 
pitifully.  "You  know  I  wouldn't  have  let  you  finish," 
she  said.  "  Don't  be  hurt,  Granville. " 

The  boy  looked  at  her  as  if  she  had  struck  him. 

"Oh,  Ellen,"  he  groaned.  "Oh,  Ellen,  I  always 
thought  you  would!" 

"I  am  not  going  to  marry  anybody,"  said  Ellen. 
Her  voice  wavered  in  spite  of  herself;  the  young  man's 
look  and  voice  were  shaking  her  through  weakness  of 
her  own  nature  which  she  did  not  understand,  but 
which  might  be  mightier  than  her  strength.  Sorne- 

235 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

thing  crept  into  her  tone  which  emboldened  the  young 
man  to  seize  her  hand  again.  "  You  do,  in  spite  of  all 
you  say —  '  he  began;  but  just  then  a  long  shadow 
fell  athwart  the  moonlight,  and  Ellen  snatched  her  hand 
away  imperceptibly,  and  young  Lloyd  stood  before 
them. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

GRANVILLE  JOY  was  employed  in  Lloyd's,  and 
Robert  had  seen  him  that  very  day  and  spoken  to  him, 
but  he  did  not  recognize  him,  not  until  Ellen  spoke. 
"This  is  Mr.  Joy,  Mr.  Lloyd,"  she  said;  "perhaps  you 
know  him.  He  works  in  your  uncle's  shop."  She 
said  it  quite  simply,  as  if  it  was  a  matter  of  course  that 
Robert  was  on  speaking  terms  with  all  the  employes 
in  his  uncle's  factory. 

Granville  colored.  "  I  saw  Mr.  Lloyd  this  afternoon 
in  the  cutting-room,"  he  said,  "and  we  had  some  talk 
together;  but  maybe  he  don't  remember,  there  are  so 
many  of  us."  Granville  said  "so  many  of  us"  with 
an  indescribably  bitter  emphasis.  Suddenly  his  gentle 
ness  seemed  changed  to  gall.  It  was  the  terrible  protest 
of  one  of  the  herd  \vho  goes  along  with  the  rest,  yet  realizes 
it,  and  looks  ever  out  from  his  common  mass  with  fierce 
eyes  of  individual  dissent  at  the  immutable  conditions 
of  things.  Immediately,  when  Granville  saw  the  other 
young  man,  this  gentleman  in  his  light  summer  clothes, 
who  bore  about  him  no  stain  nor  odor  of  toil,  he  felt 
that  here  was  Ellen's  mate;  that  he  was  left  behind. 
He  looked  at  him,  not  missing  a  detail  of  his  superiority, 
and  he  saw  himself  young  and  not  ill-looking,  but  hope 
lessly  common,  clad  in  awkward  clothes;  he  smelled 
the  smell  of  leather  that  steamed  up  in  his  face  from 
his  raiment  and  his  body;  and  he  looked  at  Ellen,  fair 
and  white  in  her  dainty  muslin,  and  saw  himself  thrust 
aside,  as  it  were,  by  his  own  judgment  as  to  the  fitness 
of  things,  but  with  no  less  bitterness.  When  he  said 

237 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"  there  are  so  many  of  us,"  he  felt  the  impulse  of  revo 
lution  in  his  heart ;  that  he  would  have  liked  to  lead  the 
"many  of  us"  against  this  young  aristocrat.  But 
Robert  smiled,  though  somewhat  stiffly,  and  bowed. 
"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Joy,"  he  said ;  "  I  do  remember, 
but  for  a  minute  I  did  not." 

"I  don't  wonder,"  said  Granville,  and  again  he 
repeated,  "There  are  so  many  of  us,"  in  that  sullen, 
bitter  tone. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  the  fellow?"  thought  Robert  ; 
but  he  said,  civilly  enough :  "  Oh,  not  at  all,  Mr.  Joy. 
I  will  admit  there  are  a  good  many  of  you,  as  you  say, 
but  that  would  not  prevent  my  remembering  a  man  to 
whom  I  was  speaking  only  a  few  hours  ago.  It  was 
only  the  half-light,  and  I  did  not  expect  to  see  you 
here." 

"Mr.  Joy  is  a  very  old  friend  of  mine,"  Ellen  said, 
quickly,  with  a  painful  impulse  of  loyalty.  The  moment 
she  saw  her  old  school-boy  lover  intimidated,  and  mani 
festly  at  a  disadvantage  before  this  elegant  young 
gentleman,  she  felt  a  fierce  instinct  of  partisanship. 
She  stood  a  little  nearer  to  him.  Granville's  face  light 
ened,  he  looked  at  her  gratefully,  and  Robert  stared 
from  one  to  the  other  doubtfully.  He  began  to  wonder 
if  he  had  interrupted  a  love-scene,  and  was  at  once 
pained  with  a  curious,  new  pain,  and  indignant.  Then, 
too,  he  scarcely  knew  what  to  do.  He  had  been  sent 
to  ask  Ellen  to  come  into  the  parlor. 

"  My  aunt  is  in  the  house,"  he  said. 

"Your  aunt?" 

"Yes,  my  aunt,  Miss  Lennox." 

Ellen  gave  a  great  start,  and  stared  at  him.  "  Does 
she  want  to  see  me?"  she  asked,  abruptly. 

Robert  glanced  at  Granville.  He  was  afraid  of 
being  rude  towards  this  possible  lover,  but  the  young 
man  was  quick  to  perceive  the  situation. 

238 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"  I  guess  I  must  be  going,"  he  said  to  Ellen. 

"Must  you  hurry?"  she  returned,  in  the  common, 
polite  rejoinder  of  her  class  in  Rowe. 

"Yes,  I  guess  I  must,"  said  Granville.  He  held 
out  his  hand  towards  Ellen,  then  drew  it  away,  but  she 
extended  hers  resolutely,  and  so  forced  his  back  again. 
"Good-night,"  she  said,  kindly,  almost  tenderly,  and 
again  Robert  thought  with  that  sinking  at  his  heart 
that  here  was  quite  possibly  the  girl's  lover,  and  all  his 
dreams  were  thrown  away. 

As  for  Granville,  he  glowed  with  a  sudden  triumph 
over  the  other.  Again  he  became  almost  sure  that 
Ellen  loved  him  after  all,  that  it  was  only  her  maiden 
shyness  which  had  led  her  to  refuse  him.  He  pressed 
her  hand  hard,  and  held  it  as  long  as  he  dared ;  then  he 
turned  to  Robert.  "I'll  bid  you  good  -  evening,  sir," 
he  said,  with  awkward  dignity,  and  was  gone. 

"  I  will  go  in  and  see  your  aunt,"  Ellen  said  to  Robert, 
regarding  him  as  she  spoke  with  a  startled  expression. 
It  had  flashed  through  her  mind  that  Miss  Lennox 
had  possibly  come  to  confess  the  secret  of  so  many 
years  ago,  and  she  shrank  with  terror  as  before  the 
lowering  of  some  stonn  of  spirit.  She  knew  how  little 
was  required  to  lash  her  mother's  violent  nature  into 
fury.  "She  was  not — ?"  she  began  to  say  to  Robert, 
then  she  stopped ;  but  he  understood.  "  Don't  be  afraid, 
Miss  Brewster,"  he  said,  kindly.  "It  is  not  a  matter 
of  by-gones,  but  the  future.  My  aunt  has  a  plan  for 
you  which  I  think  you  will  like." 

Ellen  looked  at  him  wonderingly,  but  she  went  with 
him  across  the  moonlit  yard  into  the  house. 

She  found  Miss  Cynthia  Lennox,  fair  and  elegant  in 
a  filmy  black  gown,  and  a  broad  black  hat  draped  with 
lace  and  violets  shading  her  delicate,  clear-cut  face, 
and  her  father  and  mother.  Fanny's  eyes  were  red. 
She  looked  as  if  she  had  been  running — in  fact,  one 

239 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

could  easily  hear  her  breathe  across  the  room.  "  Ellen, 
here  is  Miss  Lennox/'  she  said.  Ellen  approached  the 
lady,  who  rose,  and  the  two  shook  hands.  "Good- 
evening,  Miss  Brewster,"  said  Cynthia,  in  the  same 
tone  which  she  might  have  used  towards  a  society 
acquaintance.  Ellen  would  never  have  known  that 
she  had  heard  the  voice  before.  As  she  remembered 
it,  it  was  full  of  intensest  vibrations  of  maternal  love 
and  tenderness  and  protection  beyond  anything  which 
she  had  ever  heard  in  her  own  mother's  voice.  Now 
it  was  all  gone,  and  also  the  old  look  from  her  eyes. 
Cynthia  Lennox  was,  in  fact,  quite  another  woman  to 
the  young  girl  from  what  she  had  been  to  the  child. 
In  truth,  she  cared  not  one  whit  for  Ellen,  but  she 
was  possessed  with  a  stern  desire  of  atonement,  and 
far  stronger  than  her  love  was  the  appreciation  of 
what  that  mother  opposite  must  have  suffered  during 
that  day  and  night  when  she  had  forcibly  kept  her 
treasure.  The  agony  of  that  she  could  present  to  her 
consciousness  very  vividly,  but  she  could  not  awaken 
the  old  love  which  had  been  the  baby's  for  this 
young  girl.  Cynthia  felt  much  more  affection  for 
Fanny  than  for  Ellen.  When  she  had  unfolded  her 
plan  for  sending  Ellen  to  college,  and  Fanny  had  al 
most  gone  hysterical  with  delight,  she  found  it  almost 
impossible  to  keep  her  tears  back.  She  knew  so  acute 
ly  how  this  other  woman  felt  that  she  almost  seemed 
to  lose  her  own  individuality.  She  began  to  be  filled 
with  a  vicarious  adoration  of  Ellen,  which  was,  how 
ever,  dissipated  the  moment  she  actually  saw  her. 
She  realized  that  this  grown  -  up  girl,  who  could  no 
longer  be  cuddled  and  cradled,  was  nothing  to  her, 
but  her  sympathy  with  the  mother  remained. 

Ellen  remained  standing  after  she  had  greeted  Cynthia. 
Robert  went  over  to  the  mantle-piece  and  stood  leaning 
against  it.  He  was  completely  puzzled  and  disturbed 

240 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

by  the  whole  affair.  Ellen  looked  at  Cynthia,  then  at 
her  parents.  "  Ellen,  come  here,  child/'  said  her  father, 
suddenly,  and  Ellen  went  over  to  him,  sitting  on  the 
plush  sofa  beside  her  mother. 

Andrew  reached  up  and  took  hold  of  Ellen's  hands, 
and  drew  her  down  on  his  knee  as  if  she  had  been  a 
child.  "Ellen,  look  here,"  he  said,  in  an  intense,  al 
most  solemn  voice,  "father  has  got  something  to  tell 

y°u-" 

Fanny  began  to  weep  almost  aloud.  Cynthia  looked 
straight  ahead,  keeping  her  features  still  with  an  effort. 
Robert  studied  the  carpet  pattern. 

"Look  here,  Ellen,"  said  Andrew;  "you  know  that 
father  has  always  wanted  to  do  everything  for  you,  but 
he  ain't  able  to  do  all  he  would  like  to.  God  hasn't 
prospered  him,  and  it  seems  likely  that  he  won't  be 
able  to  do  any  more  than  he  has  done,  if  so  much,  in 
the  years  to  come.  You  know  father  has  always  wanted 
to  send  you  to  college,  and  give  you  an  extra  education 
so  3Tou  could  teach  in  a  school  where  you  would  make 
a  good  living,  and  now  here  Miss  Lennox  says  she 
heard  your  composition,  and  she  has  heard  a  good  deal 
about  you  from  Mr.  Harris,  how  well  you  stood  in  the 
high-school,  and  she  says  she  is  willing  to  send  you  to 
Vassar  College." 

Ellen  turned  pale.  She  looked  long  at  her  father, 
whose  pathetic,  worn,  half-triumphant,  half-pitiful  face 
was  so  near  her  own ;  then  she  looked  at  Cynthia,  then 
back  again.  "To  Vassar  College?"  she  said. 

"  Yes,  Ellen,  to  Vassar  College,  and  she  offers  to 
clothe  3'ou  while  you  are  there,  but  we  thank  her,  and 
tell  her  that  ain't  necessary.  We  can  furnish  your 
clothes." 

"Yes,  we  can,"  said  Fanny,  in  a  sobbing  voice, 
but  with  a  flash  of  pride. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  say  to  it,  Ellen?"  asked  Andrew, 
Q  241 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  he  asked  it  with  the  expression  of  a  martyr.  At 
that  moment  indescribable  pain  was  the  uppermost 
sensation  in  his  heart,  over  all  his  triumph  and  glad 
ness  for  Ellen.  First  came  the  anticipated  agony  of 
parting  with  her  for  the  greater  part  of  four  years, 
then  the  pain  of  letting  another  do  for  his  daughter 
what  he  wished  to  do  himself.  No  man  would  ever  look 
in  Ellen's  eyes  with  greater  love  and  greater  shrinking 
from  the  pain  which  might  come  of  love  than  Andrew 
at  that  moment. 

"But — "  said  Ellen;  then  she  stopped. 

"What,  Ellen?" 

"Can  you  spare  me  for  so  long?  Ought  I  not  to 
be  earning  money  before  that,  if  you  don't  have  much 
work?" 

"I  guess  we  can  spare  you  as  far  as  all  that  goes," 
cried  Andrew.  "  I  guess  we  can.  I  guess  we  don't 
want  you  to  support  us." 

"  I  rather  guess  we  don't,"  cried  Fanny. 

Ellen  looked  at  her  father  a  moment  longer  with  an 
adorable  look,  which  Robert  saw  with  a  sidewise  glance 
of  his  downcast  eyes,  then  at  her  mother.  Then  she 
slid  from  her  father's  knee  and  crossed  the  room  and 
stood  before  Cynthia.  "I  don't  know  how  to  thank 
you  enough,"  she  said,  "but  I  thank  you  very  much, 
and  not  only  for  myself  but  for  them";  she  made  a 
slight,  graceful,  backward  motion  of  her  shoulder  tow 
ards  her  parents.  "  I  will  study  hard  and  try  to  do  you 
credit,"  said  she.  There  was  something  about  Ellen's 
direct,  childlike  way  of  looking  at  her,  and  her  clear 
speech,  which  brought  back  to  Cynthia  the  little  girl 
of  so  many  years  ago.  A  warm  flush  came  over  her 
delicate  cheeks;  her  eyes  grew  bright  with  tenderness. 

"I  have  no  doubt  as  to  your  doing  your  best,  my 
dear,"  she  said,  "and  it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  do 
this  for  you." 

242 


"'I'LL    STUDY    HARD   AND   TRY  TO   DO    YOU    CREDIT 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

With  that,  said  with  a  graceful  softness  which  was 
charming;,  she  made  as  if  to  rise,  but  Ellen  still  stood 
before  her.  She  had  something  more  to  say.  "  If  ever 
I  am  able,"  she  said — "and  I  shall  be  able  some  day 
if  I  have  my  health — I  will  repay  you."  Ellen  spoke 
with  the  greatest  sweetness,  yet  with  an  inflexibility 
of  pride  evident  in  her  face.  Cynthia  smiled.  "Very 
well,"  she  said,  "  if  you  feel  better  to  leave  it  in  that  way. 
If  ever  you  are  able  you  shall  repay  me;  in  the  mean 
time  I  consider  that  I  am  amply  paid  in  the  pleasure 
it  gives  me  to  do  it."  Cynthia  held  out  her  slender 
hand  to  Ellen,  who  took  it  gratefully,  yet  a  little  con 
strainedly. 

In  the  opposite  corner  the  doll  sat  staring  at  them 
with  eyes  of  blank  blue  and  her  vacuous  smile.  A 
vague  sense  of  injury  was  over  Ellen,  in  spite  of  her 
delight  and  her  gratitude  —  a  sense  of  injury  which 
she  could  not  fathom,  and  for  which  she  chided  herself. 
However,  Andrew  felt  it  also. 

After  this  surprising  benefactress  and  Robert  had 
gone,  after  repeated  courtesies  and  assurances  of  obli 
gation  on  both  sides,  Andrew  turned  to  Fanny.  "  What 
does  she  do  it  for?"  he  asked. 

"Hush;  she'll  hear  you." 

"I  can't  help  it.  What  does  she  do  it  for?  Ellen 
isn't  anything  to  her." 

Fanny  looked  at  him  with  a  meaning  smile  and  nod 
which  made  her  tear-stained  face  fairly  grotesque. 

"What  do  you  mean  lookin'  that  way?"  demanded 
Andrew. 

"Oh,  you  wait  and  see,"  said  Fanny,  with  meaning, 
and  would  say  no  more.  She  was  firm  in  her  conclusion 
that  Cynthia  was  educating  their  girl  to  marry  her 
favorite  nephew,  but  that  never  occurred  to  Andrew. 
He  continued  to  feel,  while  supremely  grateful  and 
overwhelmed  with  delight  at  this  good  fortune  for  Ellen, 

243 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  distrust  and  resentment  of  a  proud  soul  under  obli 
gation  for  which  he  sees  no  adequate  reason,  and  es 
pecially  when  it  is  directed  towards  a  beloved  one  to 
whom  he  would  fain  give  of  his  own  strength  and 
treasure. 

As  for  Ellen,  she  was  in  a  tumult  of  wonder  and  de 
light,  but  when  she  looked  at  the  doll  in  her  corner 
there  came  again  that  vague  sense  of  injury,  and  she 
felt  again  as  if  in  some  way  she  were  being  robbed  in 
stead  of  being  made  the  object  of  benefit. 

After  Ellen  had  gone  to  bed  that  night  she  wondered 
if  she  ought  to  go  to  college,  and  maybe  gain  thereby 
a  career  which  was  beyond  anything  her  own  loved 
ones  had  known,  and  if  it  were  not  better  for  her  to  go 
to  work  in  the  shop  after  all. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

WHEN  Mrs.  Zelotes  was  made  acquainted  with  the 
plan  for  sending  Ellen  to  Vassar  she  astonished  Fanny. 
Fanny  ran  over  the  next  morning,  after  Andrew  had 
gone  to  work,  to  tell  her  mother-in-law.  She  sat  a 
few  minutes  in  the  sitting-room,  where  the  old  lady  was 
knitting,  before  she  unfolded  the  burden  of  her  errand. 

"Cynthia  Lennox  came  to  our  house  last  night  with 
Robert  Lloyd,"  she  said,  finally. 

"Did  they?"  remarked  Mrs.  Zelotes,  who  had  known 
perfectly  well  that  they  had  come,  having  recognized 
the  Lennox  carriage  in  the  moonlight,  and  having 
been  ever  since  devoured  with  curiosity,  which  she 
would  have  died  rather  than  betray. 

"  Yes,  they  did,"  said  Fanny.  Then  she  added,  after 
a  pause  which  gave  wonderful  impressiveness  to  the 
news,  "  Cynthia  Lennox  wants  to  send  Ellen  to  college 
— to  Vassar  College." 

Then  she  jumped,  for  the  old  woman  seemed  to  spring 
at  her  like  released  wire. 

"Send  her  to  college!"  said  she.  "What  does  she 
want  to  send  her  to  college  for?  What  right  has  Cyn 
thia  Lennox  got  to  send  Ellen  Brewster  anywhere?" 

Fanny  stared  at  her  dazedly. 

"What  right  has  she  got  interfering?"  demanded 
Mrs.  Zelotes  again. 

"Why,"  replied  Fanny,  stammering,  "she  thought 
Ellen  was  so  smart.  She  heard  her  valedictory,  and 
the  school-teacher  had  talked  about  her,  what  a  good 
scholar  she  was,  and  she  thought  it  would  be  nice  for 

245 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

her  to  go  to  college,  and  she  should  be  very  much  obliged 
herself,  and  feel  that  we  were  granting  her  a  great  pleas 
ure  and  privilege  if  we  allowed  her  to  send  Ellen  to 
Vassar." 

All  unconsciously  Fanny  imitated  to  the  life  Cyn 
thia's  soft  elegance  of  speech  and  language. 

"  Pshaw ! ' '  said  Mrs.  Zelotes ;  but  still  she  said  it  not 
so  much  angrily  as  doubtfully.  "It's  the  first  time 
I  ever  heard  of  Cynthia  Lennox  doing  such  a  thing  as 
that,"  said  she.  "  I  never  knew  she  was  given  to  send 
ing  girls  to  college.  I  never  heard  of  her  giving  any 
thing  to  anybody." 

Fanny  looked  mysteriously  at  her  mother-in-law 
with  sudden  confidence.  "Look  here,"  she  said. 

"What?" 

The  two  women  looked  at  each  other,  and  neither 
said  a  word,  but  the  meaning  of  one  flashed  to  the  other 
like  telegraphy. 

"Do  you  s'pose  that's  it?"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  her  old 
face  relaxing  into  half-shamed,  half-pleased  smiles. 

"Yes,  I  do,"  said  Fanny,  emphatically. 

"You  do?" 

"Yes,  I  'ain't  a  doubt  of  it." 

"  He  did  act  as  if  he  couldn't  take  his  eyes  off  her 
at  the  exhibition,"  agreed  Mrs.  Zelotes,  reflectively; 
"mebbe  you're  right." 

"  I  know  I'm  right  just  as  well  as  if  I'd  seen  it." 

"  Well,  mebbe  you  are.     What  does  Andrew  say?" 

"  Oh,  he  wishes  he  was  the  one  to  do  it." 

"  Of  course  he  does — he's  a  Brewster,"  said  his  mother. 

"  But  he's  got  sense  enough  to  be  pleased  that  Ellen 
has  got  the  chance." 

"He  ain't  any  more  pleased  than  I  be  at  any 
thing  that's  a  good  chance  for  Ellen,"  said  the  grand 
mother  ;  but  all  the  same,  after  Fanny  had  gone,  her 
joy  had  a  sharp  sting  for  her.  She  was  not  one  who 

246 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

could  take  a  gift  to  her  heart  without  feeling  its  sharp 
edge. 

Had  Ellen's  sentiment  been  analyzed,  she  felt  in 
something  the  same  way  that  her  grandmother  did. 
However,  she  had  begun  to  dream  definitely  about 
Robert,  and  the  reflection  had  come,  too,  that  this  might 
make  her  more  his  equal,  as  nearly  his  equal  as  Maud 
Hemingway. 

Maud  Hemingway  went  to  college,  and  so  would 
she.  Of  the  minor  accessories  of  wealth  she  thought 
not  so  much.  She  looked  at  her  hands,  which  were 
very  small  and  as  delicately  white  as  flowers,  and  re 
flected  with  a  sense  of  comfort,  of  wrhich  she  was 
ashamed,  that  she  would  not  need  ever  to  stain  them 
with  leather  now.  She  looked  at  the  homeward  stream 
of  dingy  girls  from  the  shops,  and  thought  with  a  sense 
of  escape  that  she  would  never  have  to  join  them ;  but 
she  was  conscious  of  loving  Abby  better,  and  Maria, 
who  had  also  entered  Lloyd's.  Abby,  when  she  heard 
the  news  about  Vassar,  had  looked  at  her  with  a  sort 
of  fierce  exultation. 

"Thank  the  Lord,  you're  out  of  it,  anyhow!"  she 
cried,  fervently,  as  a  soul  might  in  the  midst  of  flames. 

Maria  had  smiled  at  her  with  the  greatest  sweetness 
and  a  certain  wistfulness.  Maria  was  growing  deli 
cate,  and  seemed  to  inherit  her  father's  consumptive 
tendencies. 

"I  am  so  glad,  Ellen,"  she  said.  Then  she  added, 
"  I  suppose  we  sha'n't  see  so  much  of  you." 

"Of  course  we  sha'n't,  Maria  Atkins,"  interposed 
Abby,  "and  it  won't  be  fitting  we  should.  It  won't 
be  best  for  Ellen  to  associate  with  shop-girls  when  she's 
going  to  Vassar  College. " 

But  Ellen  had  cast  an  impetuous  arm  around  a  neck 
of  each. 

"If  ever  I  do  such  a  thing  as  that!"  said  she.     "If 
247 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ever  I  turn  a  cold  shoulder  to  either  of  you  for  such  a 
reason  as  that!  What's  Vassar  College  to  hearts? 
That's  at  the  bottom  of  everything  in  this  world,  any 
how.  1  guess  you'll  see  it  won't  make  any  difference 
unless  you  keep  on  thinking  such  things.  If  you  do — 
if  you  think  I  can  do  anything  like  that — I  won't  love 
you  so  much." 

Ellen  faced  them  both  with  gathering  indignation. 
Suddenly  this  ignoble  conception  of  herself  in  the  minds 
of  her  friends  stung  her  to  resentment.  But  Abby 
seized  her  in  two  wiry  little  arms. 

"  I  never  did,  I  never  did!"  she  cried.  "  Don't  I  know 
what  you  are  made  of,  Ellen  Brewster?  Don't  you 
think  I  know?  But  after  all,  it  might  be  better  for  you 
if  you  were  worse.  That  was  all  I  meant." 

Ellen,  one  afternoon,  set  out  in  her  pretty  challis,  a 
white  ground  with  long  sprays  of  blue  flowers  running 
over  it,  and  a  blue  ribbon  at  her  neck  and  waist,  and 
her  leghorn  hat  with  white  ribbons,  and  a  knot  of 
forget-me-nots  under  the  brim.  She  wore  her  one  pair 
of  nice  gloves,  too,  but  those  she  did  not  put  on  until 
she  reached  the  corner  of  the  street  where  Cynthia 
lived.  Then  she  rubbed  them  on  carefully,  holding  up 
her  challis  skirts  under  one  arm. 

Cynthia  was  at  home,  seated  on  the  back  veranda, 
in  a  rattan  chair,  with  a  book  which  she  was  not  read 
ing.  Ellen  stood  before  her,  in  her  cheap  attire,  which 
she  wore  with  an  air  which  seemed  to  make  it  pre 
cious,  such  faith  she  had  in  it.  Ellen  regarded  her 
coarse  blue-flowered  challis  with  an  innocent  admiration 
which  seemed  almost  able  to  glorify  it  into  silk.  Cynthia 
took  in  at  a  glance  the  exceeding  commonness  of  it  all ; 
she  saw  the  hat,  the  like  of  which  could  be  seen  in.  the- 
milliners'  windows  at  fabulously  low  prices;  the  foam 
of  spurious  lace  and  the  spray  of  wretched  blue  flowers 
made  her  shudder.  "  The  poor  child,  she  must  have 

248 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

something  better  than  that/'  she  thought,  and  in 
sensibly  she  also  thought  that  the  girl  must  lose  her 
evident  faith  in  the  splendor  of  such  attire;  must  change 
her  standard  of  taste.  She  rose  and  greeted  Ellen 
sweetly,  though  somewhat  reservedly.  When  the  two 
were  seated  opposite  each  other,  Cynthia  tried  to  talk 
pleasantly,  but  all  the  time  with  a  sub-consciousness 
as  one  will  have  of  some  deformity  which  must  be 
ignored.  The  girl  looked  so  common  to  her  in  this 
array  that  she  began  to  have  a  hopeless  feeling  of  disgust 
about  it  all.  Was  it  not  manifestly  unwise  to  try  to 
elevate  a  girl  who  took  such  evident  satisfaction  in  a 
gown  like  that,  in  a  hat  like  that?  Ellen  wore  her 
watch  and  chain  ostentatiously.  The  watch  was  too 
large  for  a  chatelaine,  but  she  had  looped  the  heavy 
chain  across  her  bosom,  and  pinned  it  with  the  brooch 
which  Abby  Atkins  had  given  her,  so  it  hung  suspended. 
Cynthia  riveted  her  eyes  helplessly  upon  that  as  she 
talked. 

"  I  hope  you  are  having  a  pleasant  vacation,"  said 
she,  as  she  looked  at  the  wratch,  and  all  at  once  Ellen 
knew. 

Ellen  replied  that  she  was  having  a  very  pleasant 
vacation,  then  she  plunged  at  once  into  the  subject  of 
her  call,  though  with  inward  trembling. 

"  .Miss  Lennox,"  said  she — and  she  followed  the  lines 
of  a  little  speech  which  she  had  been  rehearsing  to 
herself  all  the  way  there — "I  am  very  grateful  to  you 
for  what  you  propose  doing  for  me.  It  will  make  a 
difference  to  me  during  my  whole  life.  I  cannot  begin 
to  tell  you  how  grateful  I  am." 

"  I  am  very  grateful  to  be  allowed  to  do  it,"  replied 
Cynthia,  with  her  unfailing  refrain  of  gentle  politeness, 
but  a  kindly  glance  was  in  her  eyes.  Something  in 
the  girl's  tone  touched  her.  It  was  exceedingly  earnest, 
with  the  simple  earnestness  of  childhood.  Moreover, 

249 


THE    PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  was  regarding  her  with  great,  steadfast,  serious 
eyes,  like  a  baby's  who  shrinks  and  yet  will  have  her 
will  of  information. 

"  I  wanted  to  say,"  Ellen  continued — and  her  voice 
became  insensibly  hushed,  and  she  cast  a  glance  around 
at  the  house  and  the  leafy  grounds,  as  if  to  be  sure 
that  no  one  was  within  hearing — "  that  I  should  never 
under  any  circumstances  have  said  anything  regarding 
what  happened  so  long  ago.  That  I  never  have  and 
never  should  have,  that  I  never  thought  of  doing  such 
a  thing." 

Then  the  elder  woman's  face  flushed  a  burning  red, 
and  she  knew  at  once  what  the  girl  had  suspected. 
"You  might  proclaim  it  on  the  house-tops  if  it  would 
please  you,"  she  cried  out,  vehemently.  "If  you 
think — if  you  think — " 

"Oh,  I  do  not!"  cried  Ellen,  in  an  agony  of  plead 
ing.  "Indeed,  I  do  not.  It  was  only  that — I — feared 
lest  you  might  think  I  would  be  mean  enough  to 
tell." 

"  I  would  have  told,  myself,  long  ago  if  there  had  been 
only  myself  to  consider,"  said  Cynthia,  still  red  \vith 
anger,  and  her  voice  strained.  All  at  once  she  seemed 
to  Ellen  more  like  the  woman  of  her  childhood.  "Yes, 
I  would,"  said  she,  hotly — "I  will  now." 

"Oh,  I  beg  you  not!"  cried  Ellen. 

"  I  will  go  with  you  this  minute  and  tell  your  moth 
er,"  Cynthia  said,  rising. 

Ellen  sprang  up  and  moved  towards  her  as  if  to 
push  her  back  in  her  chair.  "Oh,  please  don't!"  she 
cried.  "Please  don't.  You  don't  know  mother;  and  it 
would  do  no  good.  It  was  only  because  I  wondered 
if  you  could  have  thought  I  would  tell,  if  I  would  be  so 
mean." 

"And  you  thought,  perhaps,  I  was  bribing  you  not 
to  tell,  with  Vassar  College,"  Cynthia  said,  suddenly. 

250 


"  Well,  you  have  suspected  me  of  something  which  was 
undeserved." 

"I  am  very  sorry/'  Ellen  said.  "I  did  not  suspect, 
really,  but  I  do  not  know  why  you  do  this  for  me."  She 
said  the  last  with  her  steady  eyes  of  interrogation  on 
Cynthia's  face. 

"You  know  the  reasons  I  have  given." 

"I  do  not  think  they  were  the  only  ones,"  Ellen 
replied,  stoutly.  "I  do  not  think  my  valedictory  was 
so  good  as  to  warrant  so  much,  and  I  do  not  think  I 
am  so  smart  as  to  warrant  so  much,  either." 

Cynthia  laughed.  She  sat  down  again.  "Well," 
she  said,  "you  are  not  one  to  swallow  praise  greedily." 
Then  her  tone  changed.  "  I  owe  it  to  you  to  tell  you  why 
I  wish  to  do  this,"  she  said,  "and  I  will.  You  are  an 
honest  girl,  with  yourself  as  well  as  with  other  people 
— too  honest,  perhaps,  and  you  deserve  that  I  should 
be  honest  with  you.  I  am  not  doing  this  for  you  in  the 
least,  my  dear." 

Ellen  stared  at  her. 

"No,  I  am  not,"  repeated  Cynthia.  "You  are  a 
very  clever,  smart  girl,  I  am  sure,  and  it  will  be  a  nice 
thing  for  you  to  have  a  better  education,  and  be  able 
to  take  a  higher  place  in  the  world,  but  I  am  not  doing 
it  for  you.  When  you  were  a  little  child  I  would  have 
done  everything,  given  my  life  almost,  for  you,  but  I 
never  care  so  much  for  children  when  they  grow  up. 
I  am  not  doing  this  for  you,  but  for  your  mother." 

"  My  mother?"  said  Ellen. 

"  Yes,  your  mother.  I  know  what  agony  your  mother 
must  have  been  in,  that  time  when  I  kept  you,  and  I 
want  to  atone  in  some  way.  I  think  this  is  a  good  way. 
I  don't  think  you  need  to  hesitate  about  letting  me  do  it. 
You  also  owe  a  little  atonement  to  your  mother.  It 
was  not  right  for  you  to  run  away,  in  the  first  place." 

"Yes,  I  was  very  naughty  to  run  away,"  Ellen  said, 
251 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

starting.  She  rose,  and  held  out  her  hand.  "I  hope 
you  will  forgive  me/'  she  said.  "I  am  very  grateful, 
and  it  will  make  my  father  and  mother  happier  than 
anything  else  could,  but  indeed  I  don't  think — it  is  so 
long  ago — that  there  was  any  need— 

"I  do,  for  the  sake  of  my  own  distress  over  it,"  Cyn 
thia  said,  shortly.  "Suppose,  now,  we  drop  the  sub 
ject,  my  dear.  There  is  a  taint  in  the  New  England 
blood,  and  you  have  it,  and  you  must  fight  it.  It  is  a 
suspicion  of  the  motives  of  a  good  deed  which  will 
often  poison  all  the  good  effect  from  it.  I  don't  know 
where  the  taint  came  from.  Perhaps  the  Pilgrim  Fa 
thers',  being  necessarily  always  on  the  watch  for  the 
savage  behind  his  gifts,  have  affected  their  descendants. 
Anyway,  it  is  there.  I  suppose  I  have  it." 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  said  Ellen. 

"I  also  am  sorry,"  said  Cynthia.  "I  did  you  a 
wrong,  and  your  mother  a  wrong,  years  ago.  I 
wonder  at  myself  now,  but  you  don't  know  the  tempta 
tion.  You  will  never  know  how  you  looked  to  me  that 
night." 

Cynthia's  voice  took  on  a  tone  of  ineffable  tenderness 
and  yearning.  Ellen  saw  again  the  old  expression 
in  her  face;  suddenly  she  looked  as  before,  young  and 
beautiful,  and  full  of  a  boundless  attraction.  The 
girl's  heart  fairly  leaped  towards  her  with  an  impulse 
of  affection.  She  could  in  that  minute  have  fallen  at 
her  feet,  have  followed  her  to  the  end  of  the  world.  A 
great  love  and  admiration  which  had  gotten  its  full 
growth  in  a  second  under  the  magic  of  a  look  and 
a  tone  shook  her  from  head  to  foot.  She  went 
close  to  Cynthia,  and  leaned  over  her,  putting  her 
round,  young  face  down  to  the  elder  woman's.  "Oh, 
I  love  you,  I  love  you,"  whispered  Ellen,  with  a  fer 
vor  which  was  strange  to  her. 

But  Cynthia  only  kissed  her  lightly  on  her  cheek, 
252 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  pushed  her  away  softly.  "Thank  you,  my  dear," 
she  said.  "  I  am  glad  you  came  and  spoke  to  me  frank 
ly,  and  I  am  glad  we  have  come  to  an  understanding. ' ' 
Ellen,  after  she  had  taken  her  leave,  was  more  in  love 
than  she  had  ever  been  in  her  life,  and  with  another 
woman.  She  thought  of  Cynthia  with  adoration;  she 
dreamed  about  her;  the  feeling  of  receiving  a  benefit 
from  her  hand  became  immeasurably  sweet. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

ELLEN,  under  the  influence  of  that  old  fascination 
which  Cynthia  had  exerted  over  her  temporarily  in  her 
childhood,  and  which  had  now  assumed  a  new  lease 
of  life,  would  have  loved  to  see  her  every  day,  but  along 
with  the  fascination  came  a  great  timidity  and  fear  of 
presuming.  She  felt  instinctively  that  the  fascination 
was  an  involuntary  thing  on  Cynthia's  part.  She 
kept  repeating  to  herself  \vhat  she  had  said,  that  she 
was  not  sending  her  to  Vassar  because  she  loved  her. 
Strangely  enough,  this  did  not  make  Ellen  unhappy 
in  the  least,  she  was  quite  content  to  do  all  the  loving 
and  adoring  herself.  She  made  a  sort  of  divinity  of 
the  older  woman,  and  who  expects  a  divinity  to  step 
down  from  her  marble  heights,  and  love  and  caress? 
Ellen  began  to  remember  all  Cynthia's  ways  and  looks, 
as  a  scholar  remembers  with  a  view  to  imitation.  She 
became  her  disciple.  She  began  to  move  like  Cynthia, 
and  to  speak  like  her,  though  she  did  not  know  it.  Her 
imitation  \vas  totally  unconscious ;  indeed,  it  was  hardly 
to  be  called  imitation ;  it  was  rather  the  following  out  of 
the  leading  of  that  image  of  Cj^nthia  which  was  always 
present  before  her  mind.  Ellen  saw  Cynthia  very 
seldom.  Once  or  twice  she  arrayed  herself  in  her  best 
and  made  a  formal  call  of  gratitude,  and  once  Fanny 
went  with  her.  Ellen  saw  the  incongruity  of  her  mother 
in  Cynthia's  drawing-room  with  a  torture  which  she 
never  forgot.  Going  home  she  clung  hard  to  her 
mother's  arm  all  the  way.  She  was  fairly  fierce  with 
love  and  loyalty.  She  was  so  indignant  with  herself 

254 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

that  she  had  seen  the  incongruity.  "  I  think  our  par 
lor  is  enough  sight  prettier  than  hers/'  she  said,  de 
fiantly,  when  they  reached  home  and  the  hideous 
lamp  \vas  lighted.  Ellen  looked  around  the  ornate 
room,  and  then  at  her  mother,  as  with  a  challenge  in 
behalf  of  loyalty,  and  of  that  which  underlies  ex 
ternals. 

"I  rather  guess  it  is,"  agreed  Fanny,  happily,  "and 
I  don't  s'pose  it  cost  half  so  much.  I  dare  say  that 
mat  on  her  hearth  cost  as  much  as  all  our  plush  furni 
ture  and  the  carpet,  and  it  is  a  dreadful  dull,  homely 
thing." 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  said  Ellen. 

"  I  wish  I'd  been  able  to  keep  my  hands  as  white  as 
Miss  Lennox's,  an'  I  wish  I'd  had  time  to  speak  so  soft 
and  slow,"  said  Fanny,  wistfully.  Then  Ellen  had 
her  by  both  shoulders,  and  was  actually  shaking  her 
with  a  passion  to  which  she  very  seldom  gave  rein. 

'  Mother,"  she  cried — "mother,  you  know  better,  you 
know  there  is  nobody  in  the  whole  world  to  me  like  my 
own  mother,  and  never  will  be.  It  isn't  being  beautiful, 
nor  speaking  in  a  soft  voice,  nor  dressing  well,  it's  the 
being  you — you.  You  know  I  love  you  best,  mother, 
you  know,  and  I  love  my  own  home  best,  and  everything 
that  is  my  own  best,  and  I  always  will."  Ellen  was 
almost  weeping. 

"You  silly  child,"  said  Fanny,  tenderly.  "Mother 
knows  you  love  her  best,  but  she  wishes  for  your  sake, 
and  especially  since  you  are  going  to  have  advantages 
that  she  never  had,  that  she  wras  a  little  different." 

"I  don't,  I  don't,"  said  Ellen,  fiercely.  "I  want  you 
just  as  you  are,  just  exactly  as  you  are,  mother." 

Fanny  laughed  tearfully,  and  rubbed  her  coarse 
black  head  against  Ellen's  lovingly  with  a  curious, 
cat-like  motion,  then  bade  her  run  away  or  she  would 
not  get  her  dress  done.  A  dressmaker  was  coming  for 

255 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

a  whole  week  to  the  Brewster  house  to  make  Ellen's 
outfit.  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  furnished  most  of  the  materi 
als,  and  Andrew  was  to  pay  the  dressmaker.  "You 
can  take  a  little  more  of  that  money  out  of  the  bank," 
Fanny  said.  "  I  want  Ellen  to  go  looking  so  she  won't 
be  ashamed  before  the  other  girls,  and  I  don't  want 
Cynthia  Lennox  thinking  she  ain't  well  enough  dressed, 
and  we  ought  to  have  let  her  do  it.  As  for  being  be 
holden  to  her  for  Ellen's  clothes,  I  won't." 

"I  rather  guess  not,"  said  Andrew,  but  he  was  sick 
at  heart.  Only  that  afternoon  the  man  from  whom  he 
had  borrowed  the  money  to  buy  Ellen's  wratch  and  chain 
had  asked  him  for  it.  He  had  not  a  cent  in  advance 
for  his  weekly  pay;  he  could  not  see  where  the  money 
for  Ellen's  clothes  was  coming  from.  It  was  long 
since  the  "  Golden  Hope  "  had  been  quoted  in  the  stock- 
list,  but  the  next  morning  Andrew  purchased  a  morn 
ing  paper.  He  had  stopped  taking  one  regularly. 
He  put  on  his  spectacles,  and  spread  out  the  paper  in 
his  shaking  hands,  and  scrutinized  the  stock-list  eager 
ly,  but  he  could  not  find  what  he  wanted.  The  "  Golden 
Hope  "  had  long  since  dropped  to  a  still  level  below  all 
record  of  fluctuations.  A  young  man  passing  to  his 
place  at  the  bench  looked  over  his  shoulder.  "  Count 
ing  up  your  dividends,  Brewster?"  he  asked,  with  a 
grin. 

Andrew  folded  up  the  paper  gloomily  and  made  no 
reply. 

"  Irish  dividends,  maybe/'  said  the  man,  with  a  chuckle 
at  his  own  wit,  and  a  backward  roll  of  a  facetious  eye. 

"Oh,  shut  up,  you're  too  smart  to  live,"  said  the 
man  wTho  stood  next  at  the  bench.  He  was  a  young 
fellow  who  had  been  a  school-mate  of  Ellen  in  the  gram 
mar-school.  He  had  left  to  go  to  work  when  she  had 
entered  the  high-school.  His  name  was  Dixon.  lie 
was  wiry  and  alert,  with  a  restless  sparkle  of  bright  eyes 

256 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

in  a  grimy  face,  and  he  cut  the  leather  with  lightning- 
like  rapidity.  Dixon  had  always  thought  Ellen  the 
most  beautiful  girl  in  Rowe.  He  looked  after  Andrew 
with  a  sharp  pain  of  sympathy  when  he  went  away 
with  the  roll  of  newspaper  sticking  out  of  his  pocket. 

"  Poor  old  chap,"  he  said  to  the  facetious  man,  thrust 
ing  his  face  angrily  towards  him.  "  He  has  had  a  devil 
of  a  time  since  he  begun  to  grow  old.  You  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  yourself.  Wait  till  you  begin  to  drop 
behind.  It's  \vhat 's  bound  to  come  to  the  whole  boiling 
of  us." 

"  Mind  your  jaw,"  said  the  first  man,  with  a  scowl. 

"You'd  better  mind  yours,"  said  Dixon,  slashing 
furiously  at  the  leather. 

That  noon  Dixon  offered  Andrew,  shamefacedly,  tak 
ing  him  aside  lest  the  other  men  see,  a  piece  of  pie 
of  a  superior  sort  which  his  mother  had  put  into  his 
dinner  bag,  but  Andrew  thanked  him  kindly  and  re 
fused  it.  He  could  eat  nothing  whatever  that  noon. 
He  kept  thinking  about  the  dressmaker,  and  how  Fanny 
would  ask  him  again  to  take  some  of  that  money  out 
of  the  bank  to  pay  her,  and  how  the  money  was  already 
taken  out. 

That  evening,  when  he  sat  down  to  the  tea-table 
furnished  writh  the  best  china  and  frosted  cake  in  honor 
of  the  dressmaker,  and  heard  the  radiant  talk  about 
Ellen's  new  frills  and  tucks,  he  had  a  cold  feeling  at 
his  heart.  He  was  ashamed  to  look  at  the  dressmaker. 

"You  won't  know  your  daughter  when  we  get  her 
fixed  up  for  Vassar,"  she  told  Andrew,  with  a  smirk 
which  covered  her  face  with  a  network  of  wrinkles 
under  her  blond  fluff  of  hair. 

"Do  have  some  more  cake,  Miss  Higgins,"  said 
Fanny.  She  was  radiant.  The  image  of  her  daughter 
in  her  new  gowns  had  gone  far  to  recompense  her  for  all 
her  disappointments  in  life,  and  they  had  not  been  few. 

257 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What,  after  all,  did  it  matter?"  she  asked  herself,  "if 
a  woman  was  growing  old,  if  she  had  to  work  hard, 
if  she  did  not  know  where  the  next  dollar  was  coming 
from,  if  all  the  direct  personal  savor  was  fast  passing 
out  of  existence,  when  one  had  a  daughter  who  looked 
like  that?"  Ellen,  in  a  new  blue  dress,  was  ravishing. 
The  mother  looked  at  her  when  she  was  trying  it  on, 
with  the  possession  of  love,  and  the  dressmaker  as  if 
she  herself  had  created  her. 

After  supper  Ellen  had  to  try  on  the  dress  again  for 
her  father,  and  turn  about  slowly  that  he  might  see 
all  its  fine  points. 

"There,  what  do  you  think  of  that,  Andrew?"  asked 
Fanny,  triumphantly. 

"Ain't  she  a  lady?"  asked  the  dressmaker. 

"  It  is  very  pretty/'  said  Andrew,  smiling  with  gloomy 
eyes.  Then  he  heaved  a  great  sigh,  and  went  out  of 
the  south  door  to  the  steps.  "Your  father  is  tired 
to-night,"  Fanny  said  to  Ellen  with  a  meaning  of 
excuse  for  the  dressmaker. 

The  dressmaker  reflected  shrewdly  on  Andrew's 
sigh  when  she  was  on  her  way  home.  "  Men  don't 
sigh  that  way  unless  there's  money  to  pay,"  she 
thought.  "I  don't  believe  but  he  has  been  speculat 
ing."  Then  she  wondered  if  there  was  any  doubt 
about  her  getting  her  pay,  and  concluded  that  she 
would  ask  for  it  from  day  to  da}7  to  make  sure. 

So  the  next  night  after  tea  she  asked,  with  one  of  her 
smirks  of  amiability,  if  it  would  be  convenient  for  Mrs. 
Brewster  to  pay  her  that  night.  "  I  wouldn't  ask  for 
it  until  the  end  of  the  week,"  said  she,  "but  I  have  a 
bill  to  pay."  She  said  "bill"  with  a  murmur  which 
carried  conviction  of  its  deception.  Fanny  flushed 
angrily.  "  Of  course,"  said  she, "  Mr.  Brewster  can  pay 
you  just  as  well  every  night  if  you  need  it."  Fanny 
emphasized  the  "  need  "  maliciously.  Then  she  turned 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  Andrew.  "Andrew/'  .said  she,  "Miss  Higgins 
needs  the  money,  if  you  can  pay  her  for  yesterday 
and  to-day." 

Andrew  turned  pale.  "Yes,  of  course/'  he  stam 
mered.  "How  much?" 

"Six  dollars,"  said  Fanny,  and  in  her  tone  was  un 
mistakable  meaning  of  the  dearness  of  the  price.  The 
dressmaker  was  flushed,  but  her  thin  mouth  was  set 
hard.  It  was  as  much  as  to  say,  "Well,  I  don't  care 
so  long  as  I  get  my  money."  She  was  unmarried, 
and  her  lonely  condition  had  worked  up  her  spirit  into 
a  strong  attitude  of  defiance  against  all  masculine  odds. 
She  had  once  considered  men  from  a  matrimonial  point 
of  view.  She  had  wondered  if  this  one  and  that  one 
wanted  to  marry  her.  Now  she  was  past  that,  and 
considered  with  equal  sharpness  if  this  one  or  that  one 
wanted  to  cheat  her.  She  had  missed  men's  love  through 
some  failing  either  of  theirs  or  hers.  She  did  not  know 
which,  but  she  was  determined  that  she  would  not  lose 
money.  So  she  bore  Fanny's  insulting  emphasis  with 
rigidity,  and  waited  for  her  pay. 

Andrew  pulled  out  his  old  pocket-book,  and  counted 
the  bills.  Miss  Higgins  saw  that  he  took  every  bill  in  it, 
unless  there  were  some  in  another  compartment,  and 
of  that  she  could  not  be  quite  sure.  But  Andrew7  knew. 
He  would  not  have  another  penny  until  the  next  week 
when  he  received  his  pay.  In  the  meantime  there  was  a 
bill  due  at  the  grocery  store,  and  one  at  the  market, 
and  there  \vas  the  debt  for  Ellen's  watch.  However, 
he  felt  as  if  he  would  rather  owe  every  man  in  Rowe 
than  this  one  small,  sharp  woman.  He  felt  the  scorn 
lurking  within  her  like  a  sting.  She  seemed  to  him 
like  some  venomous  insect.  He  went  out  to  the  door 
step  again,  and  wondered  if  she  would  want  her  pay 
the  next  night  when  she  went  home. 

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CHAPTER  XXIV 

ELLEN  had  a  flower-garden  behind  the  house,  and 
a  row  of  sweet-peas  which  was  her  pride.  It  had  oc 
curred  to  her  that  she  might  venture,  although  Cynihia 
Lennox  had  her  great  garden  and  conservatories,  to 
carry  her  a  bunch  of  these  sweet-peas.  She  had  asked 
her  mother  what  she  thought  about  it.  "  Why,  of  course, 
carry  her  some  if  you  want  to,"  said  Fanny.  "  I  don't 
see  why  you  shouldn't.  I  dare  say  she's  got  sweet- 
peas,  but  yours  are  uncommon  handsome,  and,  any 
way,  it  ought  to  please  her  to  have  some  given  her. 
It  ain't  altogether  what's  given,  it's  the  giving." 

So  Ellen  had  cut  a  great  bouquet  of  the  delicate  flow 
ers,  selecting  the  shades  carefully,  and  set  forth.  She 
was  as  guiltily  conscious  as  a  lover  that  she  was  mak 
ing  an  excuse  to  see  Miss  Lennox.  She  hurried  along 
in  delight  and  trepidation,  her  great  bouquet  shed 
ding  a  penetrating  fragrance  around  her,  her  face 
gleaming  white  out  of  the  dusk.  She  had  to  pass 
Granville  Joy's  house  on  her  way,  and  saw  with  some 
dismay,  as  she  drew  near,  a  figure  leaning  over  the 
gate. 

He  pushed  open  the  gate  when  she  drew  near,  and 
stood  waiting. 

"  Good  -  evening,  Ellen,"  he  said.  He  was  mindful 
not  to  say  "  Hullo  "  again.  He  bowed  with  a  piteous 
imitation  of  Robert  Lloyd,  but  Ellen  did  not  notice  it. 

"Good-evening,"  she  returned,  rather  stiffly,  then 
she  added,  in  a  very  gentle  voice,  to  make  amends,  that 
it  was  a  beautiful  night. 

260 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

The  young  man  cast  an  appreciative  glance  at  the 
crescent  moon  in  the  jewel  -  like  blue  overhead,  and  at 
the  soft  shadows  of  the  trees. 

"Yes,  beautiful,"  he  replied,  with  a  sort  of  gratitude, 
as  if  the  girl  had  praised  him  instead  of  the  night. 

"May  I  walk  along  with  you?"  he  asked,  falling  into 
step  with  her. 

"  I  am  going  to  take  these  sweet-peas  to  Miss  Len 
nox,"  said  Ellen,  without  replying  directly. 

She  was  in  terror  lest  Granville  should  renew  his 
appeal  of  a  few  weeks  before,  and  she  was  in  terror  of 
her  own  pity  for  him,  and  also  of  that  mysterious  im 
pulse  and  longing  which  sometimes  seized  her  to  her 
own  wonder  and  discomfiture.  Sometimes,  in  think 
ing  of  Granville  Joy,  and  his  avowal  of  love,  and  the 
touch  of  his  hand  on  hers,  and  his  lips  on  hers,  she  felt, 
although  she  knew  she  did  not  love  him,  a  softening 
of  her  heart  and  a  quickening  of  her  pulse  \vhich  made 
her  wonder  as  to  her  next  movement,  if  it  might  be 
something  which  she  had  not  planned.  And  always, 
after  thinking  of  Granville,  she  thought  of  Robert 
Lloyd;  some  mysterious  sequence  seemed  to  be  estab 
lished  between  the  two  in  the  girl's  mind,  though  she 
was  not  in  love  with  either. 

Ellen  was  just  at  that  period  almost  helpless  before 
the  demands  of  her  own  nature.  No  great  stress  in 
her  life  had  occurred  to  awaken  her  to  a  stanchness 
either  of  resistance  or  yielding.  She  was  in  the  full 
current  of  her  own  emotions,  which,  added  to  a  goodly 
flood  inherited  from  the  repressed  passion  of  New  Eng 
land  ancestors,  had  a  strong  pull  upon  her  feet.  Soon 
er  or  later  she  would  be  given  that  hard  shake  of  life 
which  precipitates  and  organizes  in  all  strong  natures, 
but  just  now  she  was  in  a  ferment.  She  walked  along 
under  the  crescent  moon,  with  the  young  man  at  her 
side  whose  every  thought  and  imagination  was  dwell- 

261 


THE     PORTION*     OF     LABOR 

ing  upon  her  with  love.  She  was  conscious  of  a  ten 
dency  of  her  own  imagination  in  his  direction,  or  rather 
in  the  direction  of  the  love  and  passion  which  he  repre 
sented,  and  all  the  time  her  heart  was  filled  with  the 
ideal  image  of  another  woman.  She  was  prostrated 
\vith  that  hero-worship  which  belongs  to  young  and 
virgin  souls,  and  yet  she  felt  the  drawing  of  that 
other  admiration  which  is  more  earthly  and  more  fas 
cinating,  as  it  shows  the  jewel  tints  in  one's  own  soul 
as  well  as  in  the  other. 

As  for  Granville  Joy,  who  had  scrubbed  his  hands 
and  face  well  with  scented  soap  to  take  away  the  odor 
of  the  leather,  and  put  on  a  clean  shirt  and  collar,  being 
always  prepared  for  the  possibility  of  meeting  this 
dainty  young  girl  whom  he  loved,  he  walked  along  by 
her  side,  casting,  from  time  to  time,  glances  which  were 
pure  admiration  at  the  face  over  the  great  bunch  of 
sweet-peas. 

"Don't  you  want  me  to  carry  them  for  you?"  he 
asked. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  replied  Ellen.  "  They  are  nothing 
to  carry." 

"They're  real  pretty  flowers,"  said  Granville,  tim- 
idly. 

"Yes,  I  think  they  are." 

"Mother  planted  some,  but  hers  didn't  come  up. 
Mother  has  got  some  beautiful  nasturtiums.  Perhaps 
you  would  like  some,"  he  said,  eagerly. 

"No,  thank  you,  I  have  some  myself,"  Ellen  said, 
rather  coldly.  "  I'm  just  as  much  obliged  to  you." 

Granville  quivered  a  little  and  shrank  as  a  dog  might 
under  a  blow.  He  saw  this  dainty  girl-shape  floating 
along  at  his  side  in  a  flutter  of  wonderful  draperies, 
one  hand  holding  up  her  skirts  with  maddening  reve 
lations  of  whiteness.  If  a  lily  could  hold  up  her  petals 
out  of  the  dust  she  might  do  it  in  the  same  fashion  as 

262 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  held  her  skirts,  with  no  coarse  clutching  nor  crump 
ling,  not  immodestly,  but  rather  with  disclosures  of  mod 
esty  itself.  Ellen's  wonderful  daintiness  was  one  of 
her  chief  charms.  There  was  an  immaculateness  about 
her  attire  and  her  every  motion  which  seemed  to  ex 
tend  to  her  very  soul,  and  hedged  her  about  with  the 
lure  of  unapproachableness.  It  was  more  that  than 
her  beauty  which  roused  the  imagination  and  quick 
ened  the  pulses  of  a  young  man  regarding  her. 

Granville  Joy  did  not  feel  the  earth  beneath  his  feet 
as  he  walked  with  Ellen.  The  scent  of  the  sweet-peas 
came  in  his  face,  he  heard  the  soft  rustle  of  Ellen's 
skirts  and  his  own  heart-beats.  She  was  very  silent, 
since  she  did  not  wish  him  to  go  with  her,  though  she 
was  all  the  time  reproaching  herself  for  it.  Granville 
kept  casting  about  for  something  to  say  which  should 
ingratiate  him  with  her.  He  was  resolved  to  say 
nothing  of  love  to  her. 

"  It  is  a  beautiful  night,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  agreed  Ellen,  and  she  looked  at  the  moon. 
She  felt  the  boy's  burning,  timid,  worshipful  eyes  on 
her  face.  She  trembled,  and  yet  she  was  angry  and 
annoyed.  She  felt  in  an  undefined  fashion  that  she 
herself  was  the  summer  night  and  the  flowers  and  the 
crescent  moon,  and  all  that  was  fair  and  beautiful  in 
the  whole  world  to  this  other  soul,  and  shame  seized 
her  instead  of  pride.  He  seemed  to  force  her  to  a  sight 
of  her  own  pettiness,  as  is  always  the  case  when  love 
is  not  fulry  returned.  She  made  an  impatient  motion 
with  the  shoulder  next  Granville,  and  walked  faster. 

"You  said  you  were  going  to  Miss  Lennox's,"  he  re 
marked,  anxiously,  feeling  that  in  some  way  he  had 
displeased  her. 

"Yes,  to  carry  her  some  sweet-peas." 

"  She  must  have  been  real  good-looking  when  she 
was  voung,"  Granville  said,  injudiciously, 

263 


"When  she  was  young,"  retorted  Ellen,  angrily. 
"She  is  beautiful  now.  There  is  not  another  woman 
in  Rowe  as  beautiful  as  she  is." 

"Well,  she  is  good-looking  enough,"  agreed  Gran- 
ville,  with  unreasoning  jealous}^.  He  had  not  heard 
of  Ellen's  good  fortune.  His  mother  had  not  told  him. 
She  was  a  tenderly  sentimental  woman,  and  had  always 
had  her  fancies  with  regard  to  her  son  and  Ellen  Brew- 
ster.  When  she  heard  the  news  she  reflected  that  it 
would  perhaps  remove  the  girl  from  her  boy  immeas 
urably,  that  he  would  be  pained,  so  she  said  nothing. 
Every  night  when  he  came  home  she  had  watched  his 
face  to  see  if  he  had  heard. 

Now  Ellen  told  him.  "You  know  what  Miss  Cyn 
thia  Lennox  is  going  to  do  for  me,"  she  said,  abruptly, 
almost  boastfully,  she  was  so  eager  in  her  partisanship 
of  Cynthia. 

Granville  looked  at  her  blankly.  They  were  coming 
into  the  crowded,  brilliantly  lighted  main  street  of  the 
city,  and  their  two  faces  were  quite  plain  to  each  oth 
er's  eyes. 

"  No,  I  don't,"  said  he.     "  What  is  it,  Ellen?" 

"She  is  going  to  send  me  to  Vassar  College." 

Granville's  face  whitened  perceptibly.  There  was  a 
queer  sound  in  his  throat. 

"To  Vassar  College!  '  he  repeated. 

"  Yes,  to  Vassar  College.  Then  I  shall  be  able  to  get  a 
good  school,  and  teach,  and  help  father  and  mother." 

Granville  continued  to  look  at  her,  and  suddenly  an 
intense  pity  sprang  into  life  in  the  girl's  heart.  She 
felt  as  if  she  were  looking  at  some  poor  little  child, 
instead  of  a  stalwart  young  man. 

"Don't  look  so,  Granville,"  she  said,  softly. 

"Of  course  I  am  glad  at  an}^  good  fortune  which 
can  come  to  you,  Ellen,"  Granville  said  then,  huskily. 
His  lips  quivered  a  little,  but  his  eyes  on  her  face  were 

264 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

brave  and  faithful.  Suddenly  Ellen  seemed  to  see  in 
this  young  man  a  counterpart  of  her  own  father.  Gran- 
ville  had  a  fine,  high  forehead  and  contemplative  out 
look.  He  had  been  a  good  scholar.  Many  said  that 
it  was  a  pity  he  had  to  leave  school  and  go  to  work.  It 
had  been  the  same  with  her  father.  Andrew  had  al 
ways  looked  immeasurably  above  his  labor.  She  seemed 
to  see  Granville  Joy  in  the  future  just  such  a  man, 
a  finer  animal  harnessed  to  the  task  of  a  lower,  and 
harnessed  in  part  by  his  own  loving  faithfulness  tow 
ards  others.  Ellen  had  often  reflected  that,  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  her  and  her  mother,  her  father  would  not  have 
been  obliged  to  work  so  hard.  Now  in  Granville  she 
saw  another  man  whom  love  would  hold  to  the  plough 
share.  A  great  impulse  of  loyalty  as  towards  her  own 
came  over  her. 

"  It  won't  make  any  difference  between  me  and  my 
old  friends  if  I  do  go  to  Vassar  College/'  she  said,  writh- 
out  reflecting  on  the  dangerous  encouragement  of  it. 

"  You  can't  get  into  another  track  of  life  without 
its  making  a  difference,"  returned  Granville,  soberly. 
"But  I  am  glad.  God  knows  I'm  glad,  Ellen.  I  dare 
say  it  is  better  for  you  than  if—  He  stopped  then  and 
seemed  all  at  once  to  see  projected  on  his  mirror  of  the 
future  this  daintj',  exquisite  girl,  with  her  fine  intellect, 
dragging  about  a  poor  house,  with  wailing  children  in 
arm  and  at  heel,  and  suddenly  a  great  courage  of  re 
nunciation  came  over  him. 

"It  is  better,  Ellen,"  he  said,  in  a  loud  voice,  like  a 
hero's,  as  if  he  were  cheering  his  own  better  impulses 
on  to  victor}?-  over  his  own  passions.  "  It  is  better  for 
a  girl  like  you,  than  to — " 

Ellen  knew  that  he  meant  to  say,  "  to  marry  a  fellow 
like  me."  Ellen  looked  at  him,  the  sturdy  backward 
fling  of  his  head  and  shoulders,  and  the  honest  regard 
of  his  pained  yet  unflinching  eyes,  and  a  great  weak- 

265 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ness  of  natural  longing  for  that  which  she  was  even 
now  deprecating  nearly  overswept  her.  She  was  nearer 
loving  him  that  moment  than  ever  before.  She  realized 
something  in  him  which  could  command  love — the  re 
nunciation  of  love  for  love's  sake. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  my  old  friends,  whatever  hap 
pens/'  she  said,  in  a  trembling  voice,  and  it  might  have 
all  been  different  had  they  not  then  arrived  at  Cynthia 
Lennox's. 

"Shall  I  wait  and  go  home  with  you,  Ellen?"  Gran- 
ville  asked,  timidly. 

"  No,  thank  you.  I  don't  know  how  long  I  shall  stay, " 
Ellen  replied.  "  You  are  real  kind,  but  I  am  not  a  bit 
afraid." 

"It  is  sort  of  lonesome  going  past  the  shops." 

"I  can  take  a  car,"  Ellen  said.  She  extended  her 
hand  to  Granville,  and  he  grasped  it  firmly. 

"Good-night,  Ellen;  I  am  always  glad  of  any  good 
fortune  that  may  come  to  you,"  he  said. 

But  Granville  Joy,  going  alone  down  the  brilliant 
street,  past  the  blaze  of  the  shop-windows  and  the 
knots  of  loungers  on  the  corners,  reflected  that  he  had 
seen  the  fiery  tip  of  a  cigar  on  the  Lennox  veranda, 
that  it  might  be  possible  that  young  Lloyd  was  there, 
since  Miss  Lennox  was  his  aunt,  and  that  possibly 
the  aunt's  sending  Ellen  to  Vassar  might  bring  about 
something  in  that  quarter  which  would  not  otherwise 
have  happened,  and  he  writhed  at  the  fancy  of  that 
sort  of  good  fortune  for  Ellen,  but  held  his  mind  to  it 
resolutely  as  to  some  terrible  but  necessary  grindstone 
for  the  refinement  of  spirit.  "  It  would  be  a  heap  bet 
ter  for  her,"  he  said  to  himself,  quite  loud,  and  two 
men  whom  he  was  passing  looked  at  him  curiously. 
"Drunk,"  said  one  to  the  other. 

When  he  was  on  his  homeward  way  he  overtook  a 
slender  girl  struggling  along  with  a  kerosene  -  can  in 

266 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

one  hand  and  a  package  of  sugar  in  the  other,  and,  seeing 
that  it  was  Abby  Atkins,  he  possessed  himself  of  both. 
She  only  laughed  and  did  not  start.  Abby  Atkins 
was  not  of  the  jumping  or  screaming  kind,  her  nerves 
were  so  finely  balanced  that  they  recovered  their  equilib 
rium,  after  surprises,  before  she  had  time  for  manifesta 
tions.  There  was  a  curious  healthfulness  about  the 
slender,  wiry  little  creature  who  was  overworked  and 
under-fed,  a  healthfulness  which  seemed  to  result  from 
the  action  of  the  mind  upon  a  meagre  body. 

"  Hullo,  Granville  Joy ! "  she  said,  in  her  good-comrade 
fashion,  and  the  two  went  on  together.  Presently 
Abby  looked  up  in  his  face. 

"Know  about  Ellen?"  said  she.     Granville  nodded. 

"Well,  I'm  glad  of  it,  aren't  you?"  Abby  said,  in  a 
challenging  tone. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  replied  Granville,  meeting  her  look 
firmly. 

Suddenly  he  felt  Abby's  little,  meagre,  bony  hand 
close  over  the  back  of  his,  holding  the  kerosene-can. 
"You're  a  good  fellow,  Granville  Joy,"  said  she. 

Granville  marched  on  and  made  no  response.  He 
felt  his  throat  fill  with  sobs,  and  swallowed  convulsive 
ly.  Along  with  this  womanly  compassion  came  a  com 
passion  for  himself,  so  hurt  on  his  little  field  of  battle. 
He  saw  his  own  wounds  as  one  might  see  a  stranger's. 

"  Think  of  Ellen  dogging  around  to  a  shoe-shop  like 
me  and  the  other  girls,"  said  Abby,  "and  think  of  her 
draggin'  around  with  half  a  dozen  children  and  no 
money.  Thank  the  Lord  she's  lifted  out  of  it.  It 
ain't  you  nor  me  that  ought  to  grudge  her  fortune  to 
her,  nor  wish  her  where  she  might  have  been  otherwise." 

"That's  so,"  said  the  young  man. 

Abby's  hand  tightened  over  the  one  on  the  kerosene- 
can.  "You  are  a  good  fellow,  Granville  Joy,"  she  said 
again. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

ROBERT  LLOYD  was  sitting  on  the  veranda  behind 
the  green  trail  of  vines  when  Ellen  came  up  the  walk. 
He  never  forgot  the  girl's  face  looking  over  her  bunch  of 
sweet-peas.  There  was  in  it  something  indescribably 
youthful  and  innocent,  almost  angelic.  The  light  from 
the  window  made  her  hair  toss  into  gold ;  her  blue  eyes 
sought  Cynthia  with  the  singleness  of  blue  stars.  It 
was  evident  whom  she  had  come  to  see.  She  held  out 
her  flowers  towards  her  with  a  gesture  at  once  humble 
and  worshipful,  like  that  of  some  devotee  at  a  shrine. 

She  said  "  Good-evening  "  with  a  shy  comprehensive 
ness,  then,  to  Cynthia,  like  a  child,  "  I  thought  maybe 
37ou  would  like  some  of  my  sweet-peas." 

Both  gentlemen  rose,  and  Risley  looked  curiously 
from  the  young  girl  to  Cynthia,  then  placed  his  chair 
for  her,  smiling  kindly. 

"  The  sweet-peas  are  lovely,"  Cynthia  said.  "  Thank 
you,  my  dear.  They  are  much  prettier  than  any  I 
have  had  in  my  garden  this  year.  Please  sit  down," 
for  Ellen  was  doubtful  about  availing  herself  of  the 
proffered  chair.  She  had  so  hoped  that  she  might 
find  Cynthia  alone.  She  had  dreamed,  as  a  lover 
might  have  done,  of  a  tete  -  a  -  tete  with  her,  what 
she  would  say,  what  Cynthia  would  say.  She  had 
thought,  and  trembled  at  the  thought,  that  possibly 
Cynthia  might  kiss  her  when  she  came  or  went.  She 
had  felt,  with  a  thrill  of  spirit,  the  touch  of  Cynthia's 
soft  lips  on  hers,  she  had  smelt  the  violets  about  her 
clothes.  Now  it  was  all  spoiled.  She  remembered 

268 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

things  which  she  had  heard  about  Mr.  Risley's  friend 
ship  with  C3Tiithia,  howr  he  had  danced  attendance  upon 
her  for  half  a  lifetime,  and  thought  that  she  did  not 
like  him.  She  looked  at  his  smiling,  grizzled,  blond 
face  with  distrust.  She  felt  intuitively  that  he  saw 
straight  through  her  little  subterfuge  of  the  flowers, 
that  he  divined  her  girlish  worship  at  the  shrine  of  Cyn 
thia,  and  was  making  fun  of  her. 

"Do  you  object  to  a  cigar,  Miss  Brewster?"  asked 
Robert,  and  Risley  looked  inquiringly  at  her. 

"Oh,  no,"  replied  Ellen,  \vith  the  eager  readiness 
of  a  child  to  fit  into  new  conditions.  She  thought  of 
the  sitting-room  at  home,  blue  \vith  the  rank  pipe-smoke 
of  Nahum  Beals  and  his  kind.  She  pictured  them  to 
herself  sitting  about  on  these  warm  evenings  in  their 
shirt-sleeves,  and  she  saw  the  two  gentlemen  in  their 
light  summer  clothes  with  their  fragrant  cigars  at 
their  lips,  and  all  of  a  sudden  she  realized  that  between 
these  men  and  the  others  there  \vas  a  great  gulf,  and 
that  she  was  trying  to  cross  it.  She  did  not  realize,  as 
later,  that  the  gulf  was  one  of  externals,  and  of  width 
rather  than  depth,  but  it  seemed  to  her  then  that  from 
one  shore  she  could  only  see  dimly  the  opposite.  A 
great  fear  and  jealousy  came  over  her  as  to  her  own 
future  accessibility  to  those  of  the  other  kind  among 
whom  she  had  been  brought  up,  like  her  father  and 
Granville. 

Ellen  felt  all  this  as  she  sat  beside  Cynthia,  who 
was  casting  about  in  her  mind,  in  rather  an  annoyed 
fashion,  for  something  to  say  to  this  young  beneficiary 
of  hers  which  should  not  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
benefit. 

Finally  she  inquired  if  she  were  having  a  pleasant 
vacation,  and  Ellen  replied  that  she  was.  Risley  looked 
at  her  beautiful  face  with  the  double  radiance  of  the 
electric-light  and  the  lamp-light  from  the  window  on 

269 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

it,  giving  it  a  curious  effect.  It  suddenly  occurred  to 
him  to  wonder  why  everybody  seemed  to  have  such  an 
opinion  as  to  the  talents  of  this  girl.  Why  did  Cyn 
thia  consider  that  her  native  ability  warranted  this 
forcible  elevation  of  her  from  her  own  sphere  and  set 
ting  her  on  a  height  of  education  above  her  kind? 
She  looked  and  spoke  like  an  ordinary  young  girl. 
She  had  a  beautiful  face,  it  is  true,  and  her  shyness 
seemed  due  to  the  questioning  attitude  of  a  child 
rather  than  to  self  -  consciousness,  but,  after  all,  why 
did  she  give  people  that  impression?  Her  valedictor\r 
had  been  clever,  no  doubt,  and  there  was  in  it  a  cer 
tain  fire  of  conviction,  which,  though  crude,  was  mov 
ing;  but,  after  all,  almost  any  bright  girl  might  have 
written  it.  She  had  been  a  fine  scholar,  no  doubt,  but 
any  girl  with  a  ready  intelligence  might  have  done  as 
well.  Whence  came  this  inclination  of  all  to  rear  the 
child  upon  a  pedestal?  Risley  wondered,  looking  at 
her,  narrowing  his  keen,  light  eyes  under  reflective 
brows,  puffing  at  his  cigar;  then  he  admitted  to  him 
self  that  he  was  one  with  the  crowd  of  Ellen's  admir 
ers.  There  wras  somehow  about  the  girl  that  which 
gave  the  impression  of  an  enormous  reserve  out  of 
all  proportion  to  any  external  evidence.  "The  child 
says  nothing  remarkable,"  he  told  Cynthia,  after  she 
had  gone  that  evening,  "but  somehow  she  gives  me 
an  impression  of  power  to  say  something  extraordi 
nary,  and  do  something  extraordinary.  There  is  elec 
tricity  and  steel  behind  that  soft,  rosy  flesh  of  hers. 
But  all  she  does  which  is  evident  to  the  eye  of  man 
is  to  worship  you,  Cynthia." 

"  Worship  me?"  repeated  Cynthia,  vaguely. 

"Yes,  she  has  one  of  those  aberrations  common  to 
her  youth  and  her  sex.  She  is  repeating  a  madness  of 
old  Greece,  and  following  you  as  a  nymph  might  a 
goddess." 

270 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  It  is  only  because  she  is  grateful,"  returned  Cynthia, 
looking  rather  annoyed. 

"Gratitude  may  be  a  factor  in  it,  but  it  is  very  far 
from  being  the  whole  of  the  matter.  It  is  one  of  the 
spring  madnesses  of  life;  but  don't  be  alarmed,  it  will 
be  temporary  in  the  case  of  a  girl  like  that.  She  will 
easily  be  led  into  her  natural  track  of  love.  Do  you 
know,  Cynthia,  that  she  is  one  of  the  most  normal, 
typical  young  girls  I  ever  saw,  and  that  makes  me 
wonder  more  at  this  impression  of  unusual  ability 
which  she  undoubtedly  gives.  She  has  all  the  weak 
nesses  of  her  age  and  sex,  she  is  much  younger  than 
some  girls  of  her  age,  and  yet  there  is  the  impression 
which  I  cannot  shake  off." 

"  I  have  it,  too,"  said  Cynthia,  rather  impatiently. 

"  Cynthia  Lennox,  I  don't  believe  you  care  in  the 
least  for  this  young  devotee  of  yours,  for  all  you  are 
heaping  benefits  upon  her,"  Risley  said,  looking  at 
her  quizzically. 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  do,"  replied  Cynthia,  calmty. 

"  Then  why  on  earth — ?" 

Suddenly  Cynthia  began  speaking  rapidly  and  pas 
sionately,  straightening  herself  in  her  chair.  "Oh, 
Lyman,  do  you  think  I  could  do  a  thing  like  that,  and 
not  repent  it  and  suffer  remorse  for  it  all  these  years?" 
she  cried. 

"A  thing  like  that?" 

"Like  stealing  that  child,"  Cynthia  replied,  in  a 
whisper. 

"Stealing  the  child?    You  did  not  steal  the  child." 

"Yes,  I  did." 

"  Why,  it  was  only  a  few  hours  that  you  kept  her." 

"What  difference  does  it  make  whether  you  steal 
anything  for  a  few  hours  or  a  lifetime?  I  kept  her,  and 
she  was  crying  for  her  mother,  and  her  mother  was 
suffering  tortures  all  that  time.  Then  I  kept  it  secret 

271 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

all  these  years.     You  didn't  know  what  I  have  suffered, 
Lyman." 

Cynthia  regarded  him  with  a  wan  look. 

Risley  half  laughed,  then  checked  himself.  "My 
poor  girl,  you  have  the  New  England  conscience  in  its 
worst  form,"  he  said. 

"  You  yourself  told  me  it  was  a  serious  thing  I  was 
doing,"  Cynthia  said,  half  resentfully.  "One  does  not 
wish  one's  sin  treated  lightly  when  one  has  hugged  its 
pricks  to  one's  bosom  for  so  long — it  detracts  from  the 
dignity  of  suffering." 

" So  I  did,  but  all  those  years  ago!" 

"  If  you  don't  leave  me  my  remorse,  how  can  I  atone 
for  the  deed?" 

"Cynthia,  you  are  horribly  morbid." 

"  Maybe  you  are  right,  maybe  it  is  worse  than  morbid. 
Sometimes  I  think  I  am  unnatural,  out  of  drawing, 
but  I  did  not  make  myself,  and  how  can  I  help  it?" 
Cynthia  spoke  with  a  pathetic  little  laugh. 

She  leaned  her  head  back  in  her  chair,  and  looked 
at  a  star  through  a  gap  in  the  vines.  The  shadows 
of  the  leaves  played  over  her  long,  white  figure.  Again 
to  Risley,  gazing  at  her,  came  the  conviction  as  of  subtle 
spiritual  deformity  in  the  woman;  she  was  unnatural 
in  something  the  same  fashion  that  an  orchid  is  unnat 
ural,  and  it  was  worse,  because  presumably  the  orchid 
does  not  know  it  is  an  orchid  arid  regret  not  being  anoth 
er,  more  evenly  developed,  flower,  and  Cynthia  had  a 
full  realization  and  a  mental  mirror  clear  enough  to 
see  the  twist  in  her  own  character. 

Risley  had  never  kissed  her  in  his  life,  but  that  night, 
when  they  parted,  he  laid  a  hand  on  her  soft,  gray  hair, 
and  smoothed  it  back  with  a  masculine  motion  of  ten 
derness,  leaving  her  white  forehead,  which  had  a  candid, 
childish  fulness  about  the  temples,  bare.  Then  he  put 
his  lips  to  it. 

272 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  You  are  a  silly  girl,  Cynthia,"  he  said. 

"I  wish  I  were  different,  Lyman,"  she  responded, 
and,  he  felt,  with  a  double  meaning. 

"I  don't,"  he  said,  and  stroked  her  hair  with  a  great 
tenderness,  which  seemed  for  the  time  to  quite  fill  and 
satisfy  his  heart.  He  was  a  man  of  measureless  patience, 
born  to  a  firm  conviction  of  the  journey's  end. 

"  There  are  worse  things  than  loving  a  good  woman 
your  whole  life  and  never  having  her,"  he  said  to  him 
self  as  he  went  home,  but  he  said  it  without  its  full 
meaning.  Risley's  "  nerves  "  were  always  lighted  by 
the  lamp  of  his  own  hope,  which  threw  a  gleam  over 
unknown  seas. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

ROBERT  LLOYD  accompanied  Ellen  home,  though 
she  had  said  timidly  that  she  was  not  in  the  least  afraid, 
that  she  would  not  trouble  any  one,  that  she  could  take 
a  car.  Cynthia  herself  had  insisted  that  Robert  should 
escort  her. 

"It's  too  late  for  you  to  be  out  alone,"  she  said,  and 
the  girl  seemed  to  perceive  dimly  a  hedge  of  conven 
tionality  which  she  had  not  hitherto  known.  She  had 
often  taken  a  car  when  she  was  alone  of  an  evening, 
without  a  thought  of  anything  questionable.  Some 
of  the  conductors  lived  near  Ellen,  and  she  felt  as  if 
she  were  under  personal  friendly  escort.  "I  know 
the  conductor  on  that  car,  and  it  would  take  me  right 
home,  and  I  am  not  in  the  least  afraid,"  she  said  to  Rob 
ert,  as  the  car  came  rocking  down  the  street  when  they 
emerged  from  Cynthia's  grounds. 

"It's  a  lovely  night,"  Robert  said,  speaking  quick 
ly  as  they  paused  on  the  sidewalk.  "  I  am  not  going 
to  let  you  go  alone,  anyway.  We  will  take  the  car  if 
you  say  so,  but  what  do  you  say  to  walking?  It's  a 
lovely  night." 

It  actually  flashed  through  Ellen's  mind — to  such 
small  issues  of  finance  had  she  been  accustomed — that 
the  young  man  might  insist  upon  paying  her  car-fare 
if  he  went  with  her  on  the  car. 

"  I  would  like  to  walk,  but  I  am  sorry  to  put  you  to 
so  much  trouble,"  she  said,  a  little  awkwardly. 

"Oh,  I  like  to  walk,"  returned  Robert.  "I  don't 
walk  half  enough,"  and  they  went  together  down  the 

-74 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

lighted  street.  Suddenly  to  Ellen  there  came  a  vivid 
remembrance,  so  vivid  that  it  seemed  almost  like  actual 
repetition  of  the  time  when  she,  a  little  child,  maddened 
by  the  sudden  awakening  of  the  depths  of  her  nature, 
had  come  down  this  same  street.  She  saw  that  same 
brilliant  market-window  where  she  had  stopped  and 
stared,  to  the  momentary  forgetfulness  of  her  troubles 
in  the  spectacular  display  of  that  which  was  entirely 
outside  them.  Curiously  enough,  Robert  drew  her  to 
a  full  stop  that  night  before  the  same  window.  It  was 
one  of  those  strange  cases  of  apparent  telepathy  which 
one  sometimes  notices.  When  Ellen  looked  at  the  market- 
window,  with  a  flash  of  reminiscence,  Robert  immedi 
ately  drew  her  to  a  stop  before  it.  ''That  is  quite  a 
study  in  color,"  he  said.  "I  fancy  there  are  a  good 
many  unrecognized  artists  among  market-men." 

"Yes,  it  is  really  beautiful,"  agreed  Ellen,  looking 
at  it  with  eyes  which  had  changed  very  little  from  their 
childish  outlook.  Again  she  saw  more  than  she  sa\v. 
The  window  differed  materially  from  that  before  wrhich 
she  had  stood  fascinated  so  many  years  ago,  for  that 
was  in  a  different  season.  Instead  of  frozen  game  and 
winter  vegetables,  were  the  products  of  summer  gardens, 
and  fruits,  and  berries.  The  color  scheme  was  daz 
zling  with  great  heaps  of  tomatoes,  and  long,  emerald 
ears  of  corn,  and  baskets  of  apples,  and  gold  crooks 
of  summer  squashes,  and  speckled  pods  of  beans. 

"Suppose,"  said  Robert,  as  they  walked  on,  "that 
all  the  market-men  wlio  had  artistic  tastes  had  art  edu 
cations  and  set  up  studios  and  painted  pictures,  who 
would  keep  the  markets?" 

He  spoke  gayly.  His  manner  that  night  was  younger 
and  merrier  than  Ellen  had  ever  seen  it.  She  was  nat 
urally  rather  grave  herself.  What  she  had  seen  of  life 
had  rather  disposed  her  to  a  hush  of  respect  than  to 
hilarity,  but  somehow  his  mood  began  to  infect  her. 

275 


THE    PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"I  don't  know/'  she  answered,  laughing,  "I  suppose 
somebody  would  keep  the  markets." 

"  Yes,  but  they  would  not  be  as  good  markets.  That 
is,  they  would  not  do  as  artistic  markets,  and  they 
would  not  serve  the  higher  purpose  of  catering  to  the 
artistic  taste  of  man,  as  well  as  to  his  bodily  needs." 

"  Perhaps  a  picture  like  that  is  just  as  well  and  better 
than  it  would  be  painted  and  hung  on  a  wall,"  Ellen 
admitted,  reflectively. 

"Just  so — why  is  it  not?"  Robert  said,  in  a  pleased 
voice. 

"Yes,  I  think  it  is,"  said  Ellen.  "I  do  think  it  is 
better,  because  everybody  can  see  it  there.  Ever  so 
many  people  will  see  it  there  who  would  not  go  to  picture- 
galleries  to  see  it,  and  then — 

"  And  then  it  may  go  far  to  dignify  the'  daily  needs," 
said  Robert.  "  For  instance,  a  poor  man  about  to  buy 
his  to-morrow's  dinner  may  feel  his  soul  take  a  little 
fly  above  the  prices  of  turnips  and  cabbages." 

"Maybe,"  said  Ellen,  but  doubtfully. 

"Don't  you  think  so?" 

"  The  prices  of  turnips  and  cabbages  may  crowd 
other  things  out,"  Ellen  replied,  and  her  tone  was  sad, 
almost  tragic.  "You  see  I  am  right  in  it,  Mr.  Lloyd," 
she  said,  earnestly. 

"You  mean  right  in  the  midst  of  the  kind  of  people 
whom  necessity  forces  to  neglect  the  aesthetic  for  the 
purely  useful?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen.  Then  she  added,  in  an  inde 
scribably  pathetic  voice,  "  People  have  to  live  first 
before  they  can  see,  and  they  can't  think  until  they  are 
fed,  and  one  needs  always  to  have  had  enough  turnips 
and  cabbages  to  eat  without  troubling  about  the 
getting  them,  in  order  to  see  in  them  anything  except 
food." 

Lloyd  looked  at  her  curiously.  "Decidedly  this 

276 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

child  can  think/'  he  reflected.  He  shrugged  his  arm, 
on  which  Ellen's  hand  lay,  a  little  closer  to  his  side. 

Just  then  they  were  passing  the  great  factories — 
Lloyd's,  and  Briggs's,  and  Maguire's.  Many  of  the 
windows  in  Briggs's  and  Maguire's  reflected  light  from 
the  moon  and  the  electric-lamps  on  the  street.  Lloyd's 
was  all  dark  except  for  one  brilliant  spark  of  light, 
which  seemed  to  be  threading  the  building  like  a  will- 
o'-the-wisp.  "That  is  the  night-watchman,"  said 
Robert.  "  He  must  have  a  dull  time  of  it." 

"I  should  think  he  might  be  afraid,"  said  Ellen. 

"Afraid  of  what?" 

"Of  ghosts." 

"Ghosts  in  a  shoe- shop?"  asked  Robert,  laughing. 

"  I  don't  believe  there  has  been  another  building  in 
the  whole  citj  which  has  held  so  many  heart-aches, 
and  I  always  wondered  if  they  didn't  make  ghosts 
instead  of  dead  people,"  Ellen  said. 

"Do  you  think  they  have  such  a  hard  time?" 

"I  know  they  do,"  said  Ellen.  "I  think  I  ate  the 
knowledge  along  with  my  first  daily  bread." 

Robert  Lloyd  looked  down  at  the  light,  girlish  figure 
on  his  arm,  and  again  the  resolution  that  he  would  not 
talk  on  such  topics  with  a  young  girl  like  this  came 
over  him.  He  felt  a  reluctance  to  do  so  which  was 
quite  apart  from  his  masculine  scorn  of  a  girl's  opinion 
on  such  matters.  Somehow  he  did  not  wish  to  place 
Ellen  Brewster  on  the  same  level  of  argument  on  which 
another  man  might  have  stood.  He  felt  a  jealousy 
of  doing  so.  She  seemed  more  within  his  reach,  and 
infinitely  more  for  his  pleasure,  where  she  was.  He 
looked  admiringly  down  at  her  fair  face  fixed  on  his  with 
a  serious,  intent  expression.  He  was  quite  ready  to 
admit  that  he  might  fall  in  love  with  her.  He  was  quite 
ready  to  ask  now  why  he  should  not.  She  was  a  beauti 
ful  girl,  an  uncommon  girl.  She  was  going  to  be 

277 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

thoroughly  educated.  It  would  probably  be  quite  pos 
sible  to  divorce  her  entirely  from  her  surroundings, 
lie  shuddered  when  he  thought  of  her  mother  and  aunt, 
but,  after  all,  a  man,  if  he  were  firm,  need  not  marry 
the  mother  or  aunt.  And  all  this  \vas  in  spite  of  a 
resolution  which  he  had  formed  on  due  consideration 
after  his  last  call  upon  Ellen.  He  had  said  to  himself 
that  it  would  not  in  any  case  be  wise,  that  he  had  better 
not  see  more  of  her  than  he  could  help.  Instead  of  going 
to  see  her,  he  had  gone  riding  with  Maud  Hemingway, 
who  lived  near  his  uncle's,  in  an  old  Colonial  house 
which  had  belonged  to  her  great-grandfather.  The 
girl  was  a  good  comrade,  so  good  a  comrade  that  she 
shunted,  as  it  were,  love  with  flings  of  ready  speech 
and  friendly  greeting,  and  tennis-rackets  and  riding- 
whips  and  foils.  Robert  had  been  teaching  Maud  to 
fence,  and  she  had  fenced  too  well.  Still,  Robert  had 
said  to  himself  that  he  might  some  day  fall  in  love  with 
her  and  marry  her.  He  charged  his  memory  with  the 
fact  that  this  was  a  much  more  rational  course  than 
visiting  a  girl  like  Ellen  Brewster,  so  he  staj^ed  away 
in  spite  of  involuntary  turnings  of  his  thoughts  in  that 
direction.  However,  now  when  the  opportunity  had 
seemed  to  be  fairly  forced  upon  him,  what  was  he  to 
do?  He  felt  that  he  was  stirred  as  he  had  never  been 
before.  The  girl's  very  soul  seemed  to  meet  his  when 
she  looked  up  at  him  with  those  serious  blue  eyes  of 
hers.  He  knew  that  there  had  never  been  any  like 
her  for  him,  but  he  felt  as  if  in  another  minute,  if  they 
did  not  drop  topics  which  he  might  as  well  have  dis 
cussed  with  another  man,  this  butterfly  of  femininity 
which  so  delighted  him  would  be  beyond  his  hand.  He 
wanted  to  keep  her  to  her  rose. 

"But  the  knowledge  must  not  imbitter  your  life," 
he  said.  "  It  is  not  for  a  little,  delicate  girl  to  worry 
herself  over  the  problems  which  are  too  much  for  men." 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

In  spite  of  himself  a  tenderness  had  come  into  his  voice. 
Ellen  looked  down  and  away  from  him.  She  trembled. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  problems  of  life,  like  those 
in  the  algebra  we  studied  at  school,  are  for  everybody 
who  can  read  them,  whether  men  or  women/'  said  she, 
but  her  voice  was  unsteady. 

"  Some  of  them  are  for  men  to  read  and  struggle  with 
for  the  sake  of  the  women,"  said  Robert.  His  voice 
had  a  tender  inflection.  They  were  passing  a  garden 
full  of  old-fashioned  flowers,  bordered  with  box.  The 
scent  of  the  box  seemed  fairly  to  clamor  over  the  garden 
fence,  drowning  out  the  smaller  fragrances  of  the  flowers, 
like  the  clamor  of  a  mob.  Even  the  sweetness  of  the 
mignonette  was  faintly  perceived. 

"How  strong  the  box  is,"  said  Ellen,  imperceptibly 
.shrinking  a  little  from  Robert. 

When  they  reached  the  Brewster  house  Robert  said, 
as  kindly  as  Granville  Joy  might  have  done,  "  Can 
not  we  get  better  acquainted,  Miss  Brewster?  May 
I  call  upon  you  sometimes?" 

"I  shall  be  happy  to  see  you,"  Ellen  said,  repeating 
the  formula  of  welcome  like  a  child,  but  she  knew  when 
she  repeated  it  that  it  was  very  true.  After  she  had 
parted  from  young  Lloyd,  she  went  into  the  sitting- 
room  where  were  her  mother  and  father,  her  mother 
sewing  on  a  wrapper,  her  father  reading  the  paper. 
Both  of  them  looked  up  as  the  girl  entered,  and  both 
stared  at  her  in  a  bewildered  way  without  rightly  know 
ing  why.  Ellen's  cheeks  were  a  wonderful  color,  her 
eyes  fairly  blazed  with  blue  light,  her  mouth  was  smiling 
in  that  ineffable  smile  of  a  simple  overflow  of  happiness. 

"Did  you  ride  home  on  the  car?"  asked  Fanny.  "I 
didn't  hear  it  stop." 

"No,  mother." 

"Did  you  come  home  alone?"  asked  Andrew,  ab 
ruptly. 

279 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"No,"  said  Ellen,  blinking  before  the  glare  of  the 
lamp.  Fanny  looked  at  Andrew.  "  Who  did  come 
home  with  you?"  she  asked,  in  a  foolish,  fond  voice. 

"Mr.  Robert  Lloyd.  He  was  sitting  on  the  piazza 
when  I  got  there.  I  told  Miss  Lennox  I  had  just  as 
soon  come  on  the  cars  alone,  but  she  wouldn't  let  me, 
and  then  he  said  it  would  be  pleasant  to  walk,  and — 

"Oh,  you  needn't  make  so  many  excuses,"  said 
Fanny,  laughing. 

Ellen  colored  until  her  face  was  a  blaze  of  roses,  she 
blinked  harder,  and  turned  her  head  away  impatiently. 

"I  am  not  making  excuses,"  said  she,  as  if  her 
modesty  were  offended.  "I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk 
so,  mother.  I  couldn't  help  it." 

"Of  course  you  couldn't,"  her  mother  called  out 
jocularly,  as  Ellen  went  into  the  other  room  to  get  her 
lamp  to  go  to  bed. 

Fanny  was  radiant  with  delight.  After  Ellen  had 
gone  up-stairs,  she  kept  looking  at  Andrew,  and  longing 
to  confide  in  him  her  anticipation  with  regard  to  Ellen 
and  young  Lloyd,  but  she  refrained,  being  doubtful 
as  to  how  he  would  take  it.  Andrew  looked  very  sober. 
The  girl's  beautiful,  metamorphosed  face  was  ever 
before  his  eyes,  and  it  was  with  him  as  if  he  were  looking 
after  the  flight  of  a  beloved  bird  into  a  farther  blue 
which  was  sacred,  even  from  the  following  of  his  love. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

ELLEN'S  first  impulse,  when  she  really  began  to  love 
Robert  Lloyd,  was  not  yielding,  but  flight;  her  first 
sensation,  not  happiness,  but  shame.  When  he  left 
her  that  night  she  realized,  to  her  unspeakable  dismay 
and  anger,  that  he  had  not  left  her,  that  he  would  never 
in  her  whole  life,  or  at  least  it  seemed  so,  leave  her  again. 
Everywhere  she  looked  she  saw  his  face  projected  by 
her  memory  before  her  with  all  the  reality  of  life.  His 
face  came  between  her  and  her  mother's  and  father's, 
it  came  between  her  and  her  thoughts  of  other  faces. 
When  she  was  alone  in  her  chamber,  there  was  the  face. 
She  blew  out  the  lamp  in  a  panic  of  resentment  and 
undressed  in  the  dark,  but  that  made  no  difference. 
When  she  lay  in  bed,  although  she  closed  her  eyes 
resolutely,  she  could  still  see  it. 

"I  won't  have  it;  I  won't  have  it,"  she  said,  quite 
aloud  in  her  shame  and  rebellion.  "  I  won't  have  it. 
What  does  this  mean?" 

In  spite  of  herself  the  sound  of  his  voice  was  in  her 
ears,  and  she  resented  that;  she  fought  against  the 
feeling  of  utter  rapture  which  came  stealing  over  her 
because  of  it.  She  felt  as  if  she  wanted  to  spring  out 
of  bed  and  run,  run  far  away  into  the  freedom  of  the 
night,  if  only  by  so  doing  she  could  outspeed  herself. 
Ellen  began  to  realize  the  tyranny  of  her  own  nature, 
and  her  whole  soul  arose  in  revolt. 

But  the  girl  could  no  more  escape  than  a  nymph  of 
old  the  pursuit  of  the  god,  and  there  was  no  friendly 
deitv  to  transform  her  into  a  flower  to  elude  him.  When 

281 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

she  slept  at  last  she  was  overtaken  in  the  innocent  pas 
sion  of  dreams,  and  when  she  awroke  it  was,  to  her 
angry  sensitiveness,  not  alone. 

When  she  went  down-stairs  all  her  rosy  radiance  of 
the  night  before  was  eclipsed.  She  looked  pale  and 
nervous.  She  recoiled  whenever  her  mother  began  to 
speak.  It  seemed  to  her  that  if  she  said  anything, 
and  especially  anything  congratulatory  about  Robert 
Lloyd,  she  would  fly  at  her  like  a  wild  thing.  Fanny 
kept  looking  at  her  with  loving  facetiousness,  and  Ellen 
winced  indescribably;  still,  she  did  not  say  anything 
until  after  breakfast,  when  Andrew  had  gone  to  work. 
Andrew  was  unusually  sober  and  preoccupied  that 
morning.  When  he  went  out  he  passed  close  to  Ellen, 
as  she  sat  at  the  table,  and  tilted  up  her  face  and 
kissed  her.  "Father's  blessin',"  he  whispered,  hoarse 
ly,  in  her  ear.  Ellen  nestled  against  him.  This  natural 
affection,  before  which  she  need  not  fly  nor  be  ashamed, 
which  she  had  always  known,  seemed  to  come  before 
her  like  a  shield  against  all  untried  passion.  She  felt 
sheltered  and  comforted.  But  Andrew  passed  Eva 
Tenny  coming  to  the  house  on  his  way  out  of  the  yard, 
and  when  she  entered  Fanny  began  at  once : 

"Who  do  you  s'pose  came  home  with  Ellen  last 
night?"  said  she.  She  looked  at  Eva,  then  at  Ellen, 
with  a  glance  which  seemed  to  uncover  a  raw  surface 
of  delicacy.  Ellen  flushed  angrily. 

"Mother,  I  do  wish —  '  .she  began;  but  Fanny  cut 
her  short. 

"She's  pretendin'  she  don't  like  it,"  she  said,  almost 
hilariously,  her  face  glowing  with  triumph,  "  but  she 
does.  You  ought  to  have  seen  her  when  she  came  in 
last  night.'' 

"  I  guess  I  know  who  it  was,"  said  Eva,  but  she  echoed 
her  sister's  manner  half-heartedly.  She  was  looking 
very  badly  that  morning,  her  face  was  stained,  and 

282 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

her  eye  hard  with  a  look  as  if  tears  had  frozen  in  them. 
She  had  come  in  a  soiled  waist,  too,  without  any  collar. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Eva  Tenny,  what  ails  you?" 
Fanny  cried. 

Eva  flung  herself  for  answer  on  the  floor,  and  fairly 
writhed.  Words  were  not  enough  expression  for  her 
violent  temperament.  She  had  to  resort  to  physical 
manifestations  or  lose  her  reason.  As  she  \vrithed, 
.she  groaned  as  one  might  do  who  was  d\ang  in  extrem 
ity  of  pain. 

Ellen,  when  she  heard  her  aunt's  groans,  stopped, 
and  stood  in  the  entry  viewing  it  all.  She  thought  at 
first  that  her  aunt  was  ill,  and  was  just  about  to  call 
out  to  know  if  she  should  go  for  the  doctor,  all  her  griev 
ances  being  forgotten  in  this  evidently  worse  stress, 
when  her  mother  fairly  screamed  again,  stooping  over 
her  sister,  and  trying  to  raise  her. 

"  Eva  Tenny,  you  tell  me  this  minute  what  the  mat 
ter  is." 

Then  Eva  raised  herself  on  one  elbow,  and  disclosed 
a  face  distorted  with  wrath  and  woe,  like  a  mask  of 
tragedy. 

"He's  gone!  he's  gone!"  she  shrieked  out,  in  an 
awful,  shrill  voice,  which  was  like  the  note  of  an  angry 
bird.  "He's  gone!" 

"For  God's  sake,  not— Jim?" 

"Yes,  he's  gone!  he's  gone!  Oh,  my  God!  my  God! 
he's  gone!" 

All  at  once  the  little  Amabel  appeared,  slipping  past 
Ellen  silently.  She  stood  wratching  her  mother.  She 
was  vibrating  from  head  to  foot  as  if  strung  on  wires. 
She  was  not  crying,  but  she  kept  catching  her  breath 
audibly;  her  little  hands  wrere  twitching  in  the  folds 
of  her  frock;  she  winked  rapidly,  her  lids  obscuring 
and  revealing  her  eyes  until  they  seemed  a  series  of 
blue  sparks.  She  was  no  paler  than  usual — that  was 

283 


THE     PORTION     O  F     LABOR 

scarcely   possible — but    her   skin    looked   transparent, 
pulses  were  evident  all  over  her  face  and  her  little  neck. 

"You  don't  mean  he's  gone  with — ?"  gasped  Fanny. 

Suddenly  Eva  raised  herself  with  a  convulsive  jerk 
from  the  floor  to  her  feet.  She  stood  quite  still.  "  Yes, 
he  has  gone,"  she  said,  and  all  the  passion  was  gone 
from  her  voice,  which  was  much  more  terrible  in  its  calm. 

"You  don't  mean  with — ?" 

"Yes;  he  has  gone  with  Aggie."  Eva  spoke  in  a 
voice  like  a  deaf-mute's,  quite  free  from  inflections. 
There  was  something  dreadful  about  her  rigid  attitude. 
Little  Amabel  looked  at  her  mother's  eyes,  then  cowered 
down  and  began  to  cry  aloud.  Ellen  came  in  and  took 
her  in  her  arms,  whispering  to  her  to  soothe  her.  She 
tried  to  coax  her  away,  but  the  child  resisted  violently, 
though  she  was  usually  so  docile  with  Ellen. 

Eva  did  not  seem  to  notice  Amabel's  crying.  She 
stood  in  that  horrible  inflexibility,  with  eyes  like  black 
stones  fixed  on  something  unseeable. 

Fanny  clutched  her  violently  by  the  arm  and  shook 
her. 

"Eva  Tenny,"  said  she,  "you  behave  yourself. 
What  if  he  has  run  away?  You  ain't  the  first  woman 
whose  husband  has  run  away.  Fd  have  more  pride. 
I  wouldn't  please  him  nor  her  enough.  If  he's  as  bad 
as  that,  you're  better  off  rid  of  him." 

Eva  turned  on  her  sister,  and  her  calm  broke  up  like 
ice  under  her  fire  of  passion. 

"  Don't  you  say  one  word  against  him,  not  one  word!" 
she  shrieked,  throwing  off  Fanny's  hand.  "I  won't 
hear  one  word  against  my  husband." 

Then  little  Amabel  joined  in.  "Don't  you  say  one 
word  against  my  papa!"  she  cried,  in  her  shrill,  childish 
treble.  Then  she  sobbed  convulsively,  and  pushed 
Ellen  away.  "Go  away!"  she  said,  viciously,  to  her. 
She  was  half  mad  with  terror  and  bewilderment. 

284 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Don't  you  say  one  word  against  Jim/'  said  Eva 
again.  "  If  ever  I  hear  anybody  say  one  word  against 
him  I'll— 

"You  don't  mean  you're  goin'  to  stan'  up  for  him, 
Eva  Tenny?" 

"  As  long  as  I  draw  the  breath  of  life,  and  after,  if 
I  know  anything,"  declared  Eva.  Then  she  straighten 
ed  herself  to  her  full  height,  threw  back  her  shoulders, 
and  burst  into  a  furious  denunciation  like  some  proph 
etess  of  wrath.  The  veins  on  her  forehead  grew 
turgid,  her  lips  seemed  to  swell,  her  hair  seemed  to  move 
as  she  talked.  The  others  shrank  back  and  looked  at 
her;  even  little  Amabel  hushed  her  sobs  and  stared, 
fascinated.  "Curses  on  the  grinding  tyranny  that's 
brought  it  all  about,  and  not  on  the  poor,  weak  man 
that  fell  under  it ! "  she  cried.  "  Jim  ain't  to  blame.  He's 
had  bigger  burdens  put  on  his  shoulders  than  the  Lord 
gave  him  strength  to  bear.  He  had  to  drop  'em.  Jim 
has  tried  faithful  ever  since  we  were  married.  He 
worked  hard,  and  it  wa'n't  never  his  fault  that  he  lost 
his  place,  but  he  kept  losin'  it.  They  kept  shuttin' 
down,  or  dischargin'  him  for  no  reason  at  all,  without 
a  minute's  warnin'.  An'  it  wa'n't  because  he  drank. 
Jim  never  drank  when  he  had  a  job.  He  was  just  taken 
up  and  put  down  by  them  over  him  as  if  he  was  a  piece 
on  a  checker-board.  He  lost  his  good  opinion  of  him 
self  when  he  saw  others  didn't  set  any  more  by  him 
than  to  shove  him  off  or  on  the  board  as  it  suited  their 
play.  He  began  to  think  maybe  he  wa'n't  a  man, 
and  then  he  began  to  act  as  if  he  wasn't  a  man.  And 
he  was  ashamed  of  his  life  because  he  couldn't  support 
me  and  Amabel,  ashamed  of  his  life  because  he  had 
to  live  on  my  little  earnin's.  He  was  ashamed  to  look 
me  in  the  face,  and  ashamed  to  look  his  own  child  in  the 
face.  It  was  only  night  before  last  he  was  talkin'  to 
me,  and  I  didn't  know  what  he  meant  then,  but  I  know 

285 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

now.  I  thought  then  he  meant  something  else,  but 
now  I  know  what  he  meant.  He  sat  a  long  time  leanin' 
his  head  on  his  hands,  whilst  I  was  sewin'  on  wrappers, 
after  Amabel  had  gone  to  bed,  and  finally  he  looks  up 
and  says,  'Eva,  you  was  right  and  I  was  wrong.' 

"  '  What  do  j^ou  mean,  Jim?'  says  I. 

'"I  mean  you  was  right  when  you  thought  we'd 
better  not  get  married,  and  I  was  wrong,'  says  he; 
and  he  spoke  terrible  bitter  and  sad.  I  never  heard  him 
speak  like  it.  He  sounded  like  another  man.  I  jest 
flung  down  my  se\vin'  and  went  over  to  him,  and  leaned 
his  poor  head  against  my  shoulder.  'Jim,'  says  I, 
'  I  'ain't  never  regretted  it. '  And  God  knows  I  spoke  the 
truth,  and  I  speak  the  truth  when  I  say  it  now.  I 
'ain't  never  regretted  it,  and  I  don't  regret  it  now/' 
Eva  said  the  last  with  a  look  as  if  she  were  hurling 
defiance,  then  she  went  on  in  the  same  high,  monotonous 
key  above  the  ordinary  key  of  life.  "  When  I  says  that, 
he  jest  gives  a  great  sigh  and  sort  of  pushes  me  away 
and  gets  up.  'Well,  I  have,'  says  he;  'I  have,  and 
sometimes  I  think  the  best  thing  I  can  do  is  to  take 
myself  out  of  the  way,  instead  of  sittin'  here  day  after 
day  and  seein'  you  wearin'  your  ringers  to  the  bone  to 
support  me,  and  seein'  my  child,  an'  bein'  ashamed  to 
look  her  in  the  face.  Sometimes  I  think  you  an'  Amabel 
wrould  be  a  damned  sight  better  off  without  me  than  with 
me,  and  I'm  done  for  anyway,  and  it  don't  make  much 
difference  what  I  do  next.' 

" '  Jim  Tenny,  you  jest  quit  talkin'  in  such  a  way  as 
this,'  says  I,  for  I  thought  he  meant  to  make  away 
with  himself,  but  that  wa'n't  what  he  meant.  Aggie 
Bemis  had  been  windin'  her  net  round  him,  and  he 
wa'n't  nothin'  but  a  man,  and  all  discouraged,  and  he 
gave  in.  Any  man  would  in  his  place.  He  ain't  to 
blame.  It's  the  tyrants  that's  over  us  all  that's  to 
blame."  Eva's  voice  shrilled  higher.  "  Curse  them! "  she 

286 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

shrieked.     "Curse  them  all! — every  rich  man  in  this 
gold-ridden  country ! ' ' 

"Eva  Tenny,  you're  beside  yourself,"  said  Fanny, 
who  was  herself  white  to  her  lips,  yet  she  viewed  her 
sister  indignantly,  as  one  violent  nature  will  view  an 
other  when  it  is  overborne  and  carried  away  by  a  kindred 
passion. 

"Wonder  if  you'd  be  real  calm  in  my  place?"  said 
Eva;  and  as  she  spoke  the  dreadful  impassibility  of 
desperation  returned  upon  her.  It  was  as  if  she  suf 
fered  some  chemical  change  before  their  eyes.  She 
became  silent  and  seemed  as  if  she  wrould  never  speak 
again. 

"You  hadn't  ought  to  talk  so,"  said  Fanny,  weakly, 
she  was  so  terrified.  "You  ought  to  think  of  poor 
little  Amabel/'  she  added. 

With  that,  Eva's  dreadful,  expressionless  eyes  turned 
towards  Amabel,  and  she  held  out  her  hand  to  her,  but 
the  child  fairly  screamed  with  terror  and  clung  to  Ellen. 
"  Oh,  Aunt  Eva,  don't  look  at  her  so,  you  frighten  her," 
Ellen  said,  trembling,  and  leaning  her  cheek  against 
Amabel's  little,  cold,  pale  one.  "Don't  cry,  darling," 
she  whispered.  "  It  is  just  because  poor  mother  feels  so 
badly." 

"  I  am  afraid  of  my  mamma,  and  I  want  papa  \" scream 
ed  Amabel,  quivering,  and  stiffening  her  slender  back. 

Eva  continued  to  keep  her  eyes  fixed  upon  her,  and 
to  hold  out  that  commanding  hand. 

Fanny  went  close  to  her,  seized  her  by  both  shoulders, 
and  shook  her  violently.  "Eva  Tenny,  you  behave 
yourself!"  said  she.  "There  ain't  no  need  of  your 
acting  this  way  if  your  man  has  run  awray  with  another 
woman,  and  as  for  that  child  goin'  with  you,  she  sha'n't 
go  one  step  with  any  woman  that  looks  and  acts  as  you 
do.  Actin'  this  way  over  a  good-for-nothin'  fellow 
like  Jim  Tenny!" 

287 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Again  that  scourge  of  the  spirit  aroused  Eva  to  her 
normal  state.  She  became  a  living,  breathing, wrathful, 
loving  woman  once  more.  "Don't  you  dare  say  a 
word  against  Jim!"  she  cried  out;  "not  one  word, 
Fanny  Brewster ;  I  won't  hear  it.  Don't  you  dare  say  a 
word!" 

"Don't  you  say  a  word  against  my  papa!"  shrilled 
Amabel.  Then  she  left  Ellen  and  ran  to  her  mother, 
and  clung  to  her.  And  Eva  caught  her  up,  and  hugged 
the  little,  fragile  thing  against  her  breast,  and  pounced 
upon  her  with  kisses,  with  a  fury  as  of  rage  instead  of 
love. 

"She  always  looked  like  Jim,"  she  sobbed  out;  "she 
always  did.  Aggie  Bemis  shall  never  get  her.  I've 
got  her  in  spite  of  all  the  awful  wrong  of  life ;  it's  the  good 
that  had  to  come  out  of  it  whether  or  no,  and  God  couldn't 
help  Himself.  I've  got  this  much.  She  always  looked 
like  Jim." 

Eva  set  Amabel  down  and  began  leading  her  out 
of  the  room. 

"You  ain't  goin'?"  said  Fanny,  who  had  herself 
begun  to  weep.  "Eva,  you  ain't  goin'?  Oh,  you  poor 
girl!" 

"Don't! — you  said  that  like  Jim,"  Eva  cried,  with  a 
great  groan  of  pain. 

"Eva,  you  ain't  goin'?  Wait  a  little  while,  and  let 
me  do  somethin'  for  you." 

"  You  can't  do  anything.     Come,  Amabel." 

Eva  and  Amabel  went  away,  the  child  rolling  eyes 
of  terror  and  interrogation  at  them,  Eva  impervious  to 
all  her  sister's  pleading. 

When  Andrew  heard  what  had  happened,  and  Fanny 
repeated  what  Eva  had  said,  his  blame  for  Jim  Tenny 
was  unqualified.  "I've  had  a  hard  time  enough, 
knocked  about  from  pillar  to  post,  and  I  know  what 
she  means  when  she  talks  about  a  checker-board.  God 

288 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

knows  I  feel  myself  sometimes  as  if  I  wasn't  anything 
but  a  checker  -  piece  instead  of  a  man/'  he  said,  "but 
it's  all  nonsense  blamin'  the  shoe  manufacturers  for 
his  runnin'  away  with  that  woman.  A  man  has  got 
to  use  what  little  freedom  he's  got  right.  It  ain't  any 
excuse  for  Jim  Tenny  that  he's  been  out  of  work  and 
got  discouraged.  He's  a  good-for-nothing  cur,  an'  I'd 
like  to  tell  him  so." 

"It  won't  do  for  you  to  talk  to  Eva  that  way,"  said 
Fanny.  They  were  all  at  the  supper-table.  Ellen  was 
listening  silently. 

"  She  does  right  to  stand  up  for  her  husband,  I  sup 
pose,"  said  Andrew,  "but  anybodj^'s  got  to  use  a  little 
sense.  It  don't  make  it  any  better  for  Jim,  tryin'  to 
shove  blame  off  his  shoulders  that  belongs  there.  The 
manufacturers  didn't  make  him  run  off  with  another 
woman  and  leave  his  child.  That  was  a  move  he  made 
himself." 

"  But  he  wouldn't  have  made  that  move  if  the  manu 
facturers  hadn't  made  theirs,"  Ellen  said,  unexpectedly. 

"That's  so,"  said  Fanny. 

Andrew  looked  uneasily  at  Ellen,  in  whose  cheeks 
two  red  spots  were  burning,  and  whose  eyes  upon  his 
face  seemed  narrowed  to  two  points  of  brightness. 
"There's  nothing  for  you  to  worry  about,  child,"  he 
said. 

All  this  was  before  the  dressmaker,  who  listened  with 
no  particular  interest.  Affairs  wrhich  did  not  directly 
concern  her  did  not  awaken  her  to  much  sharpness  of 
regard.  She  had  been  forced  by  circumstances  into 
a  very  narrow  groove  of  life,  a  little  foot-path  as  it  were, 
fenced  in  from  destruction  by  three  dollars  a  day.  She 
could  not,  view  it  as  keenly  as  she  might,  see  that  Jim 
Tenny's  elopement  had  anything  whatever  to  do  with 
her  three  dollars  per  day.  She,  therefore,  ate  her  sup 
per.  At  first  Andrew  had  looked  wamingly  at  Fanny 

289 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

when  she  began  to  discuss  the  subject  before  the  dress 
maker,  but  Fanny  had  replied,  "Oh,  land,  Andrew, 
she  knows  all  about  it  now.  It's  all  over  town." 

"Yes,  I  heard  it  this  morning  before  I  came,"  said 
the  dressmaker.  "  I  think  a  puff  on  the  sleeves  of  the 
silk  waist  will  be  very  pretty,  don't  you,  Mrs.  Brew- 
ster?" 

Ellen  looked  at  the  dressmaker  writh  wonder ;  it  seemed 
to  her  that  the  woman  was  going  on  a  little  especial 
side  track  of  her  own  outside  the  interests  of  her  kind. 
She  looked  at  her  pretty  new  things  and  tried  them 
on,  and  felt  guilty  that  she  had  them.  What  business 
had  she  having  new  clothes  and  going  to  Vassar  Col 
lege  in  the  face  of  that  misery?  What  was  an  educa 
tion?  What  was  anything  compared  with  the  sympa 
thy  which  love  demanded  of  love  in  the  midst  of  sorrow? 
Should  she  not  turn  her  back  upon  any  purely  personal 
advantage  as  she  would  upon  a  moral  plague? 

When  Ellen's  father  said  that  to  her  at  the  supper- 
table  she  looked  at  him  with  unchildlike  eyes.  "I 
think  it  is  something  for  me  to  worry  about,  father," 
she  said.  "How  can  I  help  worrying  if  I  love  Aunt 
Eva  and  Amabel?" 

"It's  a  dreadful  thing  for  Eva,"  said  Fanny.  "I 
don't  see  what  she  is  going  to  do.  Andrew,  pass  the 
biscuits  to  Miss  Higgins." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  one  that  is  the  farthest  be 
hind  anything  that  happens  on  this  earth  is  the  one  to 
blame,"  said  Ellen,  reverting  to  her  line  of  argument. 

"  I  don't  know  but  you've  got  to  go  back  to  God,  then," 
said  Andrew,  soberly,  passing  the  biscuits.  Miss 
Higgins  took  one. 

"No,  you  haven't,"  said  Ellen — "you  haven't,  be 
cause  men  are  free.  You've  got  to  stop  before  you  get 
to  God.  When  a  man  goes  wrong,  you  have  got  to 
look  and  see  if  he  is  to  blame,  if  he  started  himself,  or 

290 


THE    PORTION     OF    LABOR 

other  men  have  been  pushing  him  into  it.  It  seems 
to  me  that  other  men  have  been  pushing  Uncle  Jim 
into  it.  I  don't  think  factory-owners  have  any  right 
to  discharge  a  man  without  a  good  reason,  any  more 
than  he  has  a  right  to  run  the  shop." 

"I  don't  think  so,  either,"  said  Fanny.  "I  think 
Ellen  is  right." 

"I  don't  know.  It  is  all  a  puzzle,"  said  Andrew. 
"  Something's  wrong  somewhere.  I  don't  know  whether 
it's  because  we  are  pushed  or  because  we  pull.  There's 
no  use  in  your  worrying  about  it,  Ellen.  You've  got 
to  study  your  books."  Andrew  said  this  with  a  look 
of  pride  at  Ellen  and  sidelong  triumph  at  the  dress 
maker  to  see  if  she  rightly  understood  the  magnitude 
of  it  all,  of  the  whole  situation  of  making  dresses  for 
this  wonderful  young  creature  who  was  going  to  Vassar 
College. 

"  I  don't  know  but  this  is  more  important  than  books," 
said  Ellen. 

"  Oh,  maybe  you'll  find  out  something  in  your  books 
that  will  settle  the  whole  matter,"  said  Andrew.  Ellen 
was  not  eating  much  supper,  and  that  troubled  him. 
Andrew  always  knew  just  how  much  Ellen  ate. 

"  I  don't  know  what  Aunt  Eva  and  poor  little  Amabel 
will  do,"  said  she.  Ellen's  lip  quivered. 

"  Pass  the  cake  to  Miss  Higgins,"  said  Fanny,  sharp 
ly,  to  Andrew.  She  gave  him  a  significant  wink  as 
she  did  so,  not  to  talk  more  about  it. 

"Try  some  of  that  chocolate  cake,  Miss  Higgins." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Miss  Higgins,  unexcitedly. 

Andrew  had  his  own  cause  of  worry,  and  finally 
reverted  to  it,  eating  his  food  with  no  more  conception 
of  the  savor  than  if  it  were  in  another  man's  mouth. 
He  was  sorry  enough  for  his  wife's  sister,  and  recog 
nized  it  as  an  added  weight  to  his  own  burden,  but  just 
at  present  all  he  could  think  of  was  the  question  if  Miss 

291 


TPIE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Higgins  would  ask  for  her  pay  again  that  night.  He 
had  not  a  dollar  in  his  pocket.  He  had  been  dunned 
that  afternoon  by  the  man  who  had  lent  the  money  to 
buy  Ellen's  watch,  there  were  two  new  dunning  letters 
in  his  pocket,  and  now  if  that  keen  little  dressmaker, 
who  fairly  looked  to  him  like  a  venomous  insect,  as 
she  sat  eating  rather  voraciously  of  the  chocolate  cake, 
should  ask  him  again  for  the  three  dollars  due  her  that 
night !  He  would  not  have  cared  so  much,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  she  would  ask  him  before  his  wife 
and  Ellen,  and  the  question  about  the  money  in  the 
savings-bank,  which  was  a  species  of  nightmare  to 
him,  would  be  sure  to  come  to  the  front. 

Suddenly  it  struck  Andrew  that  he  might  run  away, 
that  he  might  slip  out  after  supper,  and  either  go  into 
his  mother's  house  or  down  the  street.  He  finally  de 
cided  on  the  former,  since  he  reasoned,  with  a  pitiful 
cunning,  that  if  he  went  down  the  street  he  would 
have  to  take  off  his  slippers  and  put  on  his  shoes,  and 
that  would  at  once  betray  him  and  lead  to  the  possible 
arrest  of  his  flight. 

So  after  supper,  while  Miss  Higgins  was  trying  a 
waist  on  Ellen,  and  Fanny  was  clearing  the  table, 
Andrew,  bareheaded  and  in  his  slippers,  prepared  to 
carry  his  plan  into  execution.  He  got  out  without 
being  seen,  and  hurried  around  the  rear  of  the  house, 
out  of  view  from  the  sitting-room  windows,  resolving 
on  the  way  that  in  order  to  avert  the  danger  of  a  possi 
ble  following  him  to  the  sanctuary  of  his  mother's 
house,  he  had  perhaps  better  slip  down  into  the  orchard 
behind  it  and  see  if  the  porter  apples  were  ripe.  But 
when,  stooping  as  if  beneath  some  invisible  shield, 
and  moving  with  a  low  glide  of  secrecy,  he  had  gained 
the  yard  between  the  two  houses,  the  yard  where  the 
three  cherry-trees  stood,  he  heard  Fanny's  high,  in 
sistent  voice  calling  him,  and  knew  that  it  was  all  over, 

292 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Fanny  had  her  head  thrust  out  of  her  bedroom  win 
dow.     "Andrew!  Andrew!"  she  called. 

Andrew  stopped.  "  What  is  it?"  he  asked,  in  a  gruff 
voice.  He  felt  at  that  moment  savage  with  her  and 
with  fate.  He  felt  like  some  badgered  animal  beneath 
the  claws  and  teeth  of  petty  enemies  which  were  yet 
sufficient  to  do  him  to  death.  He  felt  that  retreat  and 
defence  were  alike  impossible  and  inglorious.  He 
was  aware  of  a  monstrous  impatience  with  it  all,  which 
was  fairly  blasphemy.  "What  is  it?"  he  said,  and 
Fanny  realized  that  something  was  wrong. 

"Come  here,  Andrew  Brewrster,"  she  said,  from  the 
bedroom  window,  and  Andrew  pressed  close  to  the 
window  through  a  growth  of  sweetbrier  which  rasped 
his  hands  and  sent  up  a  sweet  fragrance  in  his  face. 
Andrew  tore  away  the  clinging  vines  angrily. 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  he  said  again. 

"Don't  spoil  that  bush,  Ellen  sets  a  lot  by  it,"  said 
Fanny.  "  What  makes  you  act  so,  Andrew  Brewster?" 
Then  she  lowered  her  voice.  "She  wants  to  know  if 
she  can  have  her  pay  to-night,"  she  whispered. 

"I  'ain't  got  a  cent,"  replied  Andre\v,  in  a  dogged, 
breathless  voice. 

"You  'ain't  been  to  the  bank  to-day,  then?" 

"No,  I  'ain't." 

Fanny  still  suspected  nothing.  She  was,  in  fact, 
angry  with  the  dressmaker  for  insisting  upon  her  pay 
in  such  a  fashion.  "I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing 
as  her  wantin'  to  be  paid  every  night/'  she  whispered, 
angrily,  "and  I'd  tell  her  so,  if  I  wasn't  afraid  she'd 
think  we  couldn't  pay  her.  I'd  never  have  had  her; 
I'd  had  Miss  Patch,  if  I'd  known  she'd  do  such  a 
mean  thing,  but,  as  it  is,  I  don't  know  what  to  do.  I 
'ain't  got  but  a  dollar  and  seventy-three  cents  by  me. 
You  'ain't  got  enough  to  make  it  up?" 

"No,  I  'ain't." 

293 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"  Well,  ail  is,  I've  got  to  tell  her  that  it  ain't  convenient 
for  me  to  pay  her  to-night,  and  she  shall  have  it  all 
together  to-morrow  night,  and  to-morrow  you'll  have 
to  go  to  the  bank  and  take  out  the  money,  Andrew. 
Don't  forget  it." 

"Well,"  said  Andrew. 

Fanny  retreated,  and  he  heard  her  high  voice  ex 
plaining  to  Miss  Iliggins.  He  tore  his  way  through 
the  clinging  sweetbrier  bushes  and  ran  with  an  un 
steady,  desperate  gait  down  to  the  orchard  behind  his 
mother's  home,  and  flung  himself  at  full  length  in 
the  dewy  grass  under  the  trees  with  all  the  abandon, 
under  stress  of  fate,  of  a  child. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ANDREW  BREWSTER,  lying  in  the  dewy  grass 
tinder  the  apple-trees,  giving  way  for  almost  the  first 
time  since  his  childhood  to  impulses  which  had  hitherto, 
from  his  New  England  heredit}^  stiffened  instead  of 
relaxed  his  muscles  of  expression,  felt  as  if  he  were 
being  stung  to  death  by  ants.  He  was  naturally  a 
man  of  broad  views,  who  felt  the  indignity  of  coping 
with  such  petty  odds.  "For  God's  sake,  if  I  had  to 
be  done  to  death,  why  couldn't  it  have  been  for  some 
thing?"  he  groaned,  speaking  with  his  lips  close  to 
the  earth  as  if  it  were  a  listening  ear.  "  Why  need  it 
all  have  been  over  so  little?  It's  just  the  little  fight 
for  enough  to  eat  and  wear  that's  getting  the  better 
of  me  that  was  a  man,  and  able  to  do  a  man's  work 
in  the  world.  Now  it  has  come  to  this!  Here  I  am 
runnin'  away  from  a  woman  because  she  wants  me 
to  pay  her  three  dollars,  and  I  am  afraid  of  another 
woman  because — I've  been  and  fooled  away  a  few 
hundred  dollars  I  had  in  the  savings-bank.  I  'm  afraid 
— yes,  it  has  come  to  this.  I  am  afraid,  afraid,  and  I'd 
run  away  out  of  life  if  I  knew  where  it  would  fetch  me 
to.  I'm  afraid  of  things  that  ain't  worth  being  afraid 
of,  and  it's  all  over  things  that's  beneath  me."  There 
came  over  Andrew,  with  his  mouth  to  the  moist  earth, 
feeling  the  breath  and  the  fragrance  of  it  in  his  nostrils, 
a  realization  of  the  great  motherhood  of  nature,  and  a 
contempt  for  himself  which  was  scorching  and  scathing 
before  it.  He  felt  that  he  came  from  that  mighty  breast 
\vhich  should  produce  only  sons  of  might,  and  was 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

spending  his  whole  life  in  an  ignominy  of  fruitless 
climbing  up  mole-hills.  "Why  couldn't  I  have  been 
more?"  he  asked  himself.  "  Oh,  my  God,  is  it  my  fault?" 
He  said  to  himself  that  if  he  had  not  yielded  to  the  uni 
versal  law  and  longing  of  his  kind  for  a  home  and  a 
family,  it  might  have  been  better.  He  asked  himself 
that  question  which  will  never  be  answered  writh  a 
surety  of  correctness,  whether  the  advancement  of  the 
individual  to  his  furthest  compass  is  more  to  the  glory 
of  life  than  the  blind  following  out  of  the  laws  of  ex 
istence  and  the  bringing  others  into  the  everlasting 
problem  of  advance.  Then  he  thought  of  Ellen,  and  a 
great  warmth  of  conviction  came  over  the  loving  heart 
of  the  man ;  all  his  self-contempt  vanished.  He  had  her, 
this  child  who  was  above  pearls  and  rubies,  he  had  her, 
and  in  her  the  furthest  reach  of  himself  and  progression 
of  himself  to  greater  distances  than  he  could  ever  have 
accomplished  in  any  other  way,  and  it  was  a  double 
progress,  since  it  was  not  only  for  him,  but  also  for  the 
woman  he  had  married.  A  great  wave  of  love  for 
Fanny  came  over  him.  He  seemed  to  see  that,  after 
all,  it  was  a  shining  road  by  which  he  had  come,  and  he 
saw  himself  upon  it  like  a  figure  of  light.  He  saw  that 
he  lived  and  could  never  die.  Then,  as  with  a  remorse 
less  hurl  of  a  high  spirit  upon  needle-pricks  of  pett\r 
cares,  he  thought  again  of  the  dressmaker,  of  the  money 
for  Ellen's  watch,  of  the  butcher's  bill,  and  the  grocer's 
bills,  and  the  money  which  he  had  taken  from  the 
bank,  and  again  he  cowered  beneath  and  loathed 
his  ignoble  burden.  He  dug  his  hot  head  into  the 
grass.  "Oh,  my  God!  oh,  my  God!"  he  groaned.  He 
fairly  sobbed.  Then  he  felt  a  soft  wind  of  feminine 
skirts  caused  by  the  sudden  stoop  of  some  one  beside 
him,  and  Ellen's  voice,  shrill  with  alarm,  rang  in  his 
ears.  "Father,  what  is  the  matter?  Father!" 

Such  was  the  man's  love  for  the  girl  that  his  first 
296 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

thought  was  for  her  alarm,  and  he  pushed  all  his  own 
troubles  into  the  background  with  a  lightning-like 
motion.  He  raised  himself  hastily,  and  smiled  at  her 
with  his  pitiful,  stiff  face.  "  It's  nothing  at  all,  Ellen, 
don't  3Tou  worry,"  he  said. 

But  that  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  her.  She  caught 
hold  of  his  arm  and  clung  to  it.  "Father,"  she  said, 
in  a  tone  which  had  in  it,  to  his  wonder,  a  firm  woman 
liness —  his  own  daughter  seemed  to  speak  to  him  as 
if  she  were  his  mother  —  "  you  are  not  telling  me  the 
truth.  Something  is  the  matter,  or  you  wouldn't  do 
like  this." 

"No,  there's  nothin',  nothin'  at  all,  dear  child,"  said 
Andrew.  He  tried  to  loosen  her  little,  clinging  hand 
from  his  arm.  "  Come,  let's  go  back  to  the  house," 
he  said.  "  Don't  you  mind  anything  about  it.  Some 
times  father  gets  discouraged  over  nothin'." 

"  It  isn't  over  nothing,"  said  Ellen.  "  What  is  it  about, 
father?" 

Andrew  tried  to  laugh.  "  Well,  if  it  isn't  over  nothin', 
it's  over  nothin'  in  particular,"  said  he;  "it's  over  jest 
what's  happened  right  along.  Sometimes  father  feels 
as  if  he  hadn't  made  as  much  as  he'd  ought  to  out  of 
his  life,  and  he's  gettin'  older,  and  he's  feelin'  kind  of 
discouraged,  that's  all." 

"Over  money  matters?"  said  Ellen,  looking  at  him 
steadily. 

"Over  nothin',"  said  her  father.  "See  here,  child, 
father's  ashamed  that  he  gave  way  so,  and  you  found 
him.  Now  don't  you  worry  one  mite  about  it — it's 
nothing  at  all.  Come,  let's  go  back  to  the  house," 
he  said. 

Ellen  said  no  more,  but  she  walked  up  from  the  field 
holding  tightly  to  her  father's  poor,  worn  hand,  and  her 
heart  was  in  a  tumult.  To  behold  any  convulsion  of 
nature  is  no  light  experience,  and  when  it  is  a  storm 

297 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

of  the  spirit  in  one  beloved  the  beholder  is  swept  along 
with  it  in  greater  or  less  measure.  Ellen  trembled  as 
she  walked.  Her  father  kept  looking  at  her  anxiously 
and  remorsefully.  Once  he  reached  around  his  other 
hand  and  chucked  her  playfully  under  the  chin. 
"Scared  most  to  death,  was  she?"  he  asked,  with  a 
shamefaced  blush. 

"1  know  something  is  the  matter,  and  I  think  it 
would  be  better  for  you  to  tell  me,  father/'  replied  Ellen, 
soberly. 

"  There's  nothing  to  tell,  child/'  said  Andrew.  "  Don't 
you  worry  your  little  head  about  it."  Between  his 
anxiety  lest  the  girl  should  be  troubled,  and  his  in 
tense  humiliation  that  she  should  have  discovered  him 
in  such  an  abandon  of  grief  which  was  almost  like  a 
disclosure  of  the  nakedness  of  his  spirit,  he  was  com 
pletely  unnerved.  Ellen  felt  him  tremble,  and  heard 
his  voice  quiver  when  he  spoke.  She  felt  towards  her 
father  something  she  had  never  felt  before — an  im 
pulse  of  protection.  She  felt  the  older  and  stronger  of 
the  two.  Her  grasp  on  his  hand  tightened,  she  seemed 
in  a  measure  to  be  leading  him  along. 

When  they  reached  the  yard  between  the  houses 
Andrew  cast  an  apprehensive  glance  at  the  windows. 
"  Has  she  gone?"  he  asked. 

"  Who,  the  dressmaker?" 

"Yes." 

"She  hadn't  when  I  came  out.  I  saw  you  come 
past  the  house,  and  I  thought  you  walked  as  if  you 
didn't  feel  well,  so  I  thought  I  would  run  out  and 
see." 

"I  was  all  right,"  replied  Andrew.  "Have  you  got 
to  try  on  anything  more  to-night?" 

"No." 

"Well,  then,  let's  run  into  grandma's  a  minute." 

"All  right,"  said  Ellen. 

298 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Mrs.  Zelotes  was  sitting  at  her  front  window  in  .the 
dusk,  looking  out  on  the  street,  as  was  her  favorite 
custom.  The  old  woman  seldom  lit  a  lamp  in  the 
summer  evening,  but  sat  there  staring  out  at  the  lighted 
street  and  the  people  passing  and  repassing,  with  her 
mind  as  absolutely  passive  as  regarded  herself  as  if 
she  were  travelling  and  observing  only  that  which 
passed  without.  At  those  times  she  became  in  a  fashion 
sensible  of  the  motion  of  the  world,  and  lost  her  sense 
of  individuality  in  the  midst  of  it.  When  her  son  and 
granddaughter  entered  she  looked  away  from  the 
window  with  the  expression  of  one  returning  from  afar, 
and  seemed  dazed  for  a  moment. 

"Hullo,  mother!"  said  Andrew. 

The  room  was  dusky,  and  they  moved  across  between 
the  chairs  and  tables  like  two  shadows. 

"Oh,  is  it  you,  Andrew?"  said  his  mother.  "Who  is 
that  with  you— Ellen?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen.     "How  do   you  do,  grandma?" 

Mrs.  Zelotes  became  suddenly  fully  awake  to  the 
situation ;  she  collected  her  scattered  faculties ;  her  keen 
old  eyes  gleamed  in  a  shaft  of  electric-light  from  the 
street  without,  which  fell  full  upon  her  face. 

" Set  down,"  said  she.     "  Has  the  dressmaker  gone?" 

"  No,  she  hadn't  when  I  came  out,"  replied  Ellen,  "  but 
she's  most  through  for  to-night." 

"How  do  your  things  look?" 

"Real  pretty,  I  guess." 

"Sometimes  I  think  you'd  better  have  had  Miss 
Patch.  I  hope  she  'ain't  got  your  sleeves  too  tight  at 
the  elbows." 

"They  seem  to  fit  very  nicely,  grandma." 

"Sleeves  are  very  particular  things;  a  sleeve  wrong 
can  spoil  a  whole  dress." 

Suddenly  the  old  woman  turned  on  Ellen  with  a 
look  of  extremest  facetiousness  and  intelligence,  and 

299 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  girl  winced,  for  she  knew  what  was  coming.  "  I 
see  you  goin'  past  with  a  young  man  last  night,  didn't 
I?"  said  she. 

Ellen  flushed.  "Yes,"  she  said,  almost  indignantly, 
for  she  had  a  feeling  as  if  the  veil  of  some  inner  sacred- 
ness  of  her  nature  were  continually  being  torn  aside. 
"I  went  over  to  Miss  Lennox,  to  carry  some  sweet- 
peas,  and  Mr.  Robert  Lloyd  was  there,  and  he  came 
home  with  me." 

"Oh!"  replied  her  grandmother. 

Ellen's  patience  left  her  at  the  sound  of  that  "Oh," 
which  seemed  to  rasp  her  very  soul.  "  You  have  none 
of  you  any  right  to  talk  and  act  as  you  do,"  said  she. 
"  You  make  me  ashamed  of  you,  you  and  mother  ; 
father  has  more  sense.  Just  because  a  young  man 
makes  me  a  call  to  return  something,  and  then  walks 
home  with  me,  because  he  happened  to  be  at  the  house 
where  I  call  in  the  evening!  I  think  it's  a  shame. 
You  make  me  feel  as  if  I  couldn't  look  him  in  the 
face. 

"Never  mind,  grandma  didn't  mean  any  harm," 
Andrew  said,  soothingly. 

"You  needn't  try  to  excuse  me,  Andrew  Brewster," 
cried  his  mother,  angrily.  "  I  guess  it's  a  pretty  to-do, 
if  I  can't  say  a  word  in  joke  to  my  own  granddaughter. 
If  it  had  been  a  poor,  good-for-nothing  young  feller 
workin'  in  a  shoe-factory,  I  s'pose  she'd  been  tickled  to 
death  to  be  joked  about  him,  but  now  when  it  begins  to 
look  as  if  somebody  that  was  worth  while  had  come 
along — 

"Grandma,  if  you  say  another  word  about  it,  I  will 
never  speak  to  Robert  Lloyd  again  as  long  as  I  live," 
declared  Ellen. 

"Never  mind,  child,"  whispered  Andrew. 

"I  do  mind,  and  I  mean  what  I  say,"  Ellen  cried. 
"I  won't  have  it.  Robert  Lloyd  is  nothing  to  me,  and 

300 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

I  am  nothing  to  him.  He  is  no  better  than  Granville 
Joy.  There  is  nothing  between  us,  and  you  make  me 
too  ashamed  to  think  of  him." 

Then  the  old  woman  cried  out,  in  a  tone  of  triumph, 
"  Well,  there  he  is,  turnin'  in  at  your  gate  now." 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

ELLEN  rose  without  a  word,  and  fled  out  of  the  room 
and  out  of  the  house.  It  seemed  to  her,  after  what  had 
happened,  after  what  her  mother  and  grandmother 
had  said  and  insinuated,  after  what  she  herself  had 
thought  and  felt,  that  she  must.  She  longed  to  see 
Robert  Lloyd,  to  hear  him  speak,  as  she  had  never 
longed  for  anything  in  the  world,  and  yet  she  ran 
away  as  if  she  were  driven  to  obey  some  law  which 
was  coeval  with  the  first  woman  and  beyond  all  volition 
of  her  individual  self. 

When  she  reached  the  head  of  the  little  cross  street 
on  which  the  Atkinses  lived,  she  turned  into  it  with 
relief.  The  Atkins  house  was  a  tiny  cottage,  with  a 
little  kitchen  ell,  and  a  sagging  piazza  across  the  front. 
On  this  piazza  were  shadowy  figures,  and  the  dull,  red 
gleam  of  pipes,  and  one  fiery  tip  of  a  cigar.  Joe  Atkins, 
and  Sargent,  and  two  other  men  were  sitting  out  there 
in  the  cool  of  the  evening.  Ellen  hurried  around  the 
curve  of  the  foot-path  to  the  kitchen  door.  Abby  was 
in  there,  working  with  the  swift  precision  of  a 
machine.  She  washed  and  wiped  dishes  as  if  in  a 
sort  of  fury,  her  thin  elbows  jerking,  her  mouth  com 
pressed. 

When  Ellen  entered,  Abby  stared,  then  her  whole 
face  lighted  up,  as  if  from  some  internal  lamp.  "  Why, 
Ellen,  is  that  you?"  she  said,  in  a  surprisingly  sweet 
voice.  Sometimes  Abby's  sharp  American  voice  rang 
with  the  sweetness  of  a  soft  bell. 

"  I  thought  I'd  run  over  a  minute,"  said  Ellen. 
302 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

The  other  girl  looked  sharply  at  her.  "  Why,  what's 
the  matter?"  she  said. 

"  Nothing  is  the  matter.     Why?" 

"Why,  I  thought  you  looked  sort  of  queer.  Maybe 
it's  the  light.  Sit  down;  I'll  have  the  dishes  done  in  a 
minute,  then  we'll  go  into  the  sitting-room." 

"  I'd  rather  stay  out  here  with  you,"  said  Ellen. 

Abby  looked  at  her  again.  "  There  is  something  the 
matter,  Ellen  Brewster,"  said  she;  "you  can't  cheat 
me.  You  would  never  have  run  over  here  this  way 
in  the  world.  What  has  happened?" 

"  Let's  go  up  to  your  room  after  the  dishes  are  done, 
and  then  I'll  tell  you,"  whispered  Ellen.  The  men's 
voices  on  the  piazza  could  be  heard  quite  distinctly, 
and  it  seemed  possible  that  their  own  conversation 
might  be  overheard  in  return. 

"All  right,"  said  Abby.  "Of  course  I  have  heard 
about  your  aunt,"  she  added,  in  a  low  voice. 

"  Yes,"  said  Ellen,  and  she  felt  shamed  and  remorse 
ful  that  her  own  affairs  had  been  uppermost  in  her  mind, 
and  that  Abby  had  supposed  that  she  might  be  disturbed 
over  this  great  trouble  of  her  poor  aunt's. 

"  I  think  it  is  dreadful/'  said  Abby.  "  I  wish  I  could 
get  hold  of  that  woman."  By  "that  woman"  she 
meant  the  woman  with  whom  poor  Jim  Tenny  had 
eloped. 

"I  do,"  said  Ellen,  bitterly. 

"  But  it's  something  besides  that  made  you  run  over 
here."  said  Abby. 

"  I'll  tell  you  when  we  go  up  to  your  room,"  replied 
Ellen. 

When  the  dishes  were  finished,  and  the  two  girls  in 
Abby's  little  chamber,  seated  side  by  side  on  the  bed, 
Ellen  still  hesitated. 

"  Now,  Ellen  Brewster,  what  is  the  matter?  You 
said  you  would  tell,  and  you've  got  to,"  said  Abby. 

303 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  looked  away  from  her,  blushing.  The  electric- 
light  from  the  street  shone  full  in  the  room,  which  was 
wavering  with  grotesque  shadows. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  ran  away." 

"You  ran  away!     What  for?" 

"Oh,  because." 

"Because  what?" 

"Because  I  saw  somebody  coming." 

"Saw  who  coming?" 

Ellen  was  silent. 

"Not  Granville  Joy?" 

Ellen  shook  her  head. 

"Not—?" 

Ellen  looked  straight  ahead. 

"Not  young  Mr.  Lloyd?" 

Ellen  was  silent  with  the  silence  of  assent. 

"Did  he  go  into  your  house?" 

Ellen  nodded. 

"Where  were  you?" 

"In   grandma's." 

"And  you  ran  away,  over  here?" 

Ellen  nodded. 

"Why,  Ellen  Brewster,  didn't  you  want  to  see  him?" 

Ellen  turned  from  Abby  with  an  impatient  gesture, 
buried  her  face  in  the  bed,  and  began  to  weep. 

Abby  leaned  over  her  caressingly.  "Ellen  dear," 
she  whispered,  "  what  is  the  matter ;  what  are  you  cry 
ing  for?  What  made  you  run  away?" 

Ellen  sobbed  harder. 

Abb}''  looked  at  Ellen's  prostrate  figure  sadly.  "El 
len,"  she  began;  then  she  stopped,  for  her  own  voice 
quivered.  Then  she  went  on,  quite  steadily.  "El 
len,"  she  said,  "you  like  him." 

"No,  I  don't,"  declared  Ellen.  "I  won't.  1  never 
will.  Nothing  shall  make  me." 

But  Abby  continued  to  look  at  her  Gadly  and  jealously. 

304 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  There's  a  power  over  us  which  is  too  strong  for  girls/' 
said  she,  "and  you've  come  under  it,  Ellen,  and  you 
can't  help  it."  Then  she  added,  with  a  great,  noble 
burst  of  utter  unselfishness:  "And  I'm  glad,  I'm  glad, 
Ellen.  That  man  can  lift  you  out  of  the  grind." 

But  Ellen  sat  up  straight  and  faced  her,  with  burn 
ing  cheeks,  and  eyes  shining  through  tears.  "I  will 
never  be  lifted  out  of  the  grind  as  long  as  those  I  love 
are  in  it,"  said  she. 

"  Do  you  suppose  it  would  make  it  any  better  for 
your  folks  to  see  you  in  it  all  your  life  along  with  them?" 
said  Abby.  "  Suppose  you  married  a  fellow  like  Gran- 
ville  Joy?" 


CHAPTER  XXX 

ELLEN  looked  at  the  other  girl  in  a  kind  of  rage  of 
maidenly  shame.  "Why  have  I  got  to  get  married, 
anyway?"  she  demanded.  "  Isn't  there  anything  in 
this  world  besides  getting  married?  Why  do  you  all  talk 
so  about  me?  You  don't  seem  so  bent  on  getting  mar 
ried  yourself.  If  you  think  so  much  of  marriage,  why 
don't  you  get  married  yourself,  and  let  me  alone?" 

"Nobody  wants  to  marry  me  that  I  know  of,"  replied 
Abby,  quite  simply.  Then  she,  too,  blazed  out.  "Get 
married!"  she  cried.  "Do  you  really  think  I  would 
get  married  to  the  kind  of  man  who  would  marry  me? 
Do  you  think  I  could  if  I  loved  him?"  A  great  wave 
of  red  surged  over  the  girl's  thin  face,  her  voice  trem 
bled  with  tenderness.  Ellen  knew  at  once,  with  a 
throb  of  sympathy  and  shame,  that  Abby  did  love  some 
one. 

"Do  you  think  I  would  marry  him  if  I  loved  him?" 
demanded  Abby,  stiffening  herself  into  a  soldier-like 
straightness.  "Do  you  think?  I  tell  you  what  it  is," 
she  said,  "  I  was  lookin'  only  to-day  at  David  Mendon 
at  the  cutting-bench,  cutting  away  with  his  poor  little 
knife.  I'd  like  to  know  how  many  handles  he's  worn 
out  since  he  began.  There  he  was,  putting  the  pattern 
on  the  leather,  and  cuttin'  around  it,  standin'  at  his 
window,  that's  a  hot  place  in  summer  and  a  cold  one 
in  winter,  and  there's  where  he's  stood  for -I  don't  know 
how  many  years  since  before  I  was  born.  He's  one 
of  the  few  that  Lloyd's  has  hung  on  to  when  he's  got 
older,  and  I  thought  to  myself,  good  Lord,  how  that 

306 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

poor  man  must  have  loved  his  wife,  and  how  he  must 
love  his  children,  to  be  willin'  to  turn  himself  into  a 
machine  like  that  for  them.  He  never  takes  a  holiday 
unless  he's  forced  into  it ;  there  he  stands  and  cuts  and 
cuts.  If  I  were  his  wife,  I  would  die  of  shame  and  pity 
that  I  ever  led  him  into  it.  Do  you  think  I  would  ever 
let  a  man  turn  himself  into  a  machine  for  me,  if  I  loved 
him?  I  guess  I  wouldn't!  And  that's  why,  when  I 
see  a  man  of  another  sort  that  you  won't  have  to  break 
your  own  heart  over,  whether  you  marry  him  or  not, 
payin'  attention  to  you,  I  am  glad.  It's  a  different 
thing,  marriage  with  a  man  like  Robert  Lloyd,  and  a 
man  like  that  would  never  think  of  me.  I'm  right  in 
the  ranks,  and  you  ain't." 

"I  am,"  said  Ellen,  stoutly. 

"  No,  you  ain't ;  you  don't  belong  there,  and  when  I 
see  a  chance  for  you  to  get  out  where  you  belong — " 

"  I  don't  intend  to  make  marriage  a  stepping-stone," 
said  Ellen.  "  Sometimes — "  She  hesitated. 

"What?"  asked  the  other  girl. 

"  Sometimes  I  think  I  would  rather  not  go  to  college, 
after  all." 

"Ellen  Brewster,  are  you  crazy?  Of  course, you  will 
go  to  college  unless  you  marry  Robert  Lloyd.  Per 
haps  he  won't  want  to  wait."  Then  Abby,  dauntless 
as  she  was,  shrank  a  little  before  Ellen's  wrathful  retort. 

"  Abby  Atkins,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself!" 
she  cried.  "There  he's  been  to  see  me  just  twice,  the 
first  time  on  an  errand,  and  the  next  with  his  aunt, 
and  he's  walked  home  with  me  once  because  he 
couldn't  help  it;  his  aunt  told  him  to!" 

"  But  here  he  is  again  to-night,"  said  Abby,  apolo 
getically. 

"What  of  that?  I  suppose  he  has  come  on  another 
errand." 

"Then  what  made  you  run  away?" 
307 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Because  you  have  all  made  me  ashamed  of  my 
life  to  look  at  him,"  said  Ellen,  hotly. 

Then  down  went  her  head  on  the  bed  again,  and 
Abby  was  leaning  over  her,  caressing  her,  whispering 
fond  things  to  her  like  a  lover. 

"There,  there,  Ellen,"  she  whispered.  "Don't  be 
mad,  don't  feel  bad.  I  didn't  mean  any  harm.  You  are 
.such  a  beauty — there's  nobody  like  you  in  the  world — 
that  everybody  thinks  that  any  man  who  sees  you 
must  want  you." 

"  Robert  Lloyd  doesn't,  and  if  he  did  I  wouldn't  have 
him,"  sobbed  Ellen. 

"You  sha'n't  if  you  don't  want  him,"  said  Abby, 
consolingly. 

After  a  while  the  two  girls  bathed  their  eyes  with 
cold  water,  and  went  down-stairs  into  the  sitting-room. 
Maria  was  making  herself  a  blue  muslin  dress,  and  her 
mother  was  hemming  the  ruffles.  There  was  a  cheap 
blue  shade  on  the  lamp,  and  Maria  herself  was  clad  in  a 
blue  gingham.  All  the  blue  color  and  the  shade  on  the 
lamp  gave  a  curious  pallor  and  unreality  to  the  homely 
room  and  the  two  women.  Mrs.  Atkins's  hair  was 
strained  back  from  her  hollow  temples,  which  had  noble 
outlines. 

"I'm  going  to  walk  a  little  way  with  Ellen,  she's 
going  home,"  said  Abby. 

"Very  well,"  said  her  mother.  Maria  looked  wist 
fully  at  them  as  they  went  out.  She  went  on  sewing 
on  her  blue  muslin,  rather  sadly.  She  coughed  a  little. 

"  Why  don't  you  put  up  your  sewing  for  to-night 
and  go  to  bed,  child?"  said  her  mother. 

"I  might  as  well  sit  here  and  sew  as  go  to  bed 
and  lie  there.  I  shouldn't  sleep,"  replied  Maria,  with 
the  gentlest  sadness  conceivable.  There  was  in  it  no 
shadow  of  complaining.  Of  late  years  all  the  fire  of 
resistance  had  seemed  to  die  out  in  the  girl.  She  was 

308 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

unfailingly  sweet,  but  nerveless.  Often  when  she 
raised  a  hand  it  seemed  as  if  she  could  not  even  let  it 
fall,  as  if  it  must  remain  poised  by  some  curious  inertia. 
Still,  she  went  to  the  shop  every  day  and  did  her  work 
faithfully.  She  pasted  linings  in  shoes,  and  her  slender 
little  fingers  used  to  fly  as  if  they  were  driven  by  some 
more  subtle  machine  than  any  in  the  factory.  Often 
Maria  felt  vaguely  as  if  she  were  in  the  grasp  of  some 
mighty  machine  worked  by  a  mighty  operator;  she 
felt,  as  she  pasted  the  linings,  as  if  she  herself  were  also 
a  part  of  some  monstrous  scheme  of  work  under  greater 
hands  than  hers,  and  there  was  never  any  getting  back 
of  it.  And  always  with  it  all  there  was  that  ceaseless, 
helpless,  bewildered  longing  for  something,  she  was 
afraid  to  think  what,  which  often  saps  the  strength 
and  life  of  a  young  girl.  Maria  had  never  had  a  lover 
in  her  life;  she  had  not  even  good  comrades  among 
young  men,  as  her  sister  had.  No  man  at  that  time 
would  have  ever  looked  twice  at  her,  unless  he  had 
fallen  in  love  with  her,  and  had  been  disposed  to  pick 
her  up  and  carry  her  along  on  the  hard  road  upon  which 
they  fared  together.  Maria  was  half  fed  in  every  sense ; 
she  had  not  enough  nourishing  food  for  her  body,  nor 
love  for  her  heart,  nor  exercise  for  her  brain.  She  had 
no  time  to  read,  as  she  was  forced  to  sew  when  out  of 
the  shop  if  she  would  have  anything  to  wear.  When 
at  last  she  went  up-stairs  to  bed,  before  Abby  returned, 
she  sat  down  by  her  window,  and  leaned  her  little,  peaked 
chin  on  the  sill  and  looked  out.  The  stars  were  un 
usually  bright  for  a  summer  night;  the  whole  sky 
seemed  filled  with  a  constantly  augmenting  host  of 
them.  The  scent  of  tobacco  came  to  her  from  below. 
To  the  lonely  girl  the  stars  and  the  scent  of  the  tobacco 
served  as  stimulants ;  she  formed  a  forcible  wish.  "  I 
wish,"  she  muttered  to  herself,  "that  I  was  either  an 
angel  or  a  man."  Then  the  next  minute  she  chided 

309 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

herself  for  her  wickedness.  A  great  wave  of  love  for 
God,  and  remorse  for  impatience  and  melancholy  in 
her  earthly  lot,  swept  over  her.  She  knelt  down  beside 
her  bed  and  prayed.  An  exultation  half -physical, 
half-spiritual,  filled  her.  When  she  rose,  her  little,  thin 
face  was  radiant.  She  seemed  to  measure  the  shortness 
of  the  work  and  woe  of  the  world  as  between  her  thumb 
and  finger.  The  joy  of  the  divine  filled  all  her  longing. 
When  Abby  came  home,  who  shared  her  chamber,  she 
felt  no  jealousy.  She  only  inquired  whether  she  had 
gone  quite  home  with  Ellen.  "Yes,  I  did,"  replied 
Abby.  "  I  don't  think  it  is  safe  for  her  to  go  past  that 
lonely  place  below  the  Smiths'." 

"I'm  glad  you  did,"  said  Maria,  with  an  angelic 
inflection  in  her  voice. 

"  Robert  Lloyd  came  to  see  Ellen,  and  she  ran  away 
over  here,  and  wouldn't  see  him,  because  they  had  all 
been  plaguing  her  about  him,"  said  Abby.  "I  wish 
she  wouldn't  do  so.  It  would  be  a  splendid  thing  for 
her  to  marry  him,  and  I  know  he  likes  her,  and  his  aunt 
is  going  to  send  her  to  college." 

"  That  won't  make  any  difference  to  Ellen,  and  every 
thing  will  be  all  right  anyway,  if  only  she  loved  God," 
said  Maria,  still  with  that  rapt,  angelic  voice. 

"Shucks!"  said  Abby.  Then  she  leaned  over  her 
sister,  caught  her  by  her  little,  thin  shoulders  and  shook 
her  tenderly.  "There,  I  didn't  mean  to  speak  so," 
said  she.  "You're  awful  good,  Maria.  I'm  glad 
you've  got  religion  if  it's  so  much  comfort  to  you.  I 
don't  mean  to  make  light  of  it,  but  I'm  afraid  you  ain't 
well.  I'm  goin'  to  get  you  some  more  of  that  tonic 
to-morrow." 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WHEN  Ellen  reached  home  that  night  she  found  no 
one  there  except  her  father,  who  was  sitting  on  the 
door-step  in  the  north  yard.  Her  mother  had  gone  to 
see  her  aunt  Eva  as  soon  as  the  dressmaker  had  left. 
"Who  was  that  with  you?"  Andrew  asked,  as  she 
drew  near. 

"Abby,"  replied  Ellen. 

"So  you  went  over  there?" 

Ellen  sat  down  on  a  lower  step  in  front  of  her  father. 
"Yes/'  said  she.  She  half  laughed  up  in  his  face,  like 
a  child  who  knows  she  has  been  naughty,  yet  knows 
she  will  not  be  blamed  since  she  can  count  so  surely 
on  the  indulgent  love  of  the  would-be  blamer. 

"Ellen,  your  mother  didn't  like  it." 

"They  had  said  so  many  things  to  me  about  him 
that  I  didn't  feel  as  if  I  could  see  him,  father,"  she 
said. 

Andrew  put  a  hand  on  her  head.  "I  know  what 
you  mean,"  he  replied,  "but  they  didn't  mean  any 
harm;  they're  only  looking  out  for  your  best  good, 
Ellen.  You  can't  always  have  us;  it  ain't  in  the  course 
of  nature,  you  know,  Ellen." 

There  was  a  tone  of  inexorable  sadness,  the  sadness 
of  fate  itself  in  Andrew's  voice.  He  had,  as  he  spoke, 
the  full  realization  of  that  stage  of  progress  which 
is  simply  for  the  next,  which  passes  to  make  room  for  it. 
He  felt  his  own  nothingness.  It  was  the  throe  of  the 
present  before  the  future ;  it  was  the  pang  of  anticipa 
tory  annihilation. 


THE     PORTION    OP'     LABOR 

"  Don't  talk  that  way,  father,"  said  Ellen.  "  Neither 
you  nor  mother  are  old  people." 

"Oh,  well,  it's  all  right,  don't  you  worry,"  said  An 
drew. 

"HowT  long  did  he  stay?"  asked  Ellen.  She  did  not 
look  at  her  father  as  she  spoke. 

"  Oh,  he  didn't  stay  at  all,  after  they  found  out  you 
had  gone." 

Ellen  sighed.  After  a  second  Andrew  sighed  also. 
"  It's  gettin'  late,"  said  he,  heavily ;  "  mebbe  we'd  better 
go  in  before  your  mother  comes,  Ellen.  Mebbe  you'll 
get  cold  out  here." 

"Oh  no,  I  shall  not,"  said  Ellen,  "and  I  want  to  hear 
about  poor  Aunt  Eva.  I  don't  see  what  she  is  going 
to  do." 

"  It's  a  dreadful  thing  makin'  a  mistake  in  marriage," 
said  Andrew. 

"  Uncle  Jim  was  a  good  man  if  he  hadn't  had  such  a 
hard  time." 

Andrew  looked  at  her,  then  he  spoke  impressively. 
"Look  here,  Ellen,"  he  said,  "you  are  a  good  scholar, 
and  you  are  smarter  in  a  good  many  ways  than  father 
has  ever  been,  but  there's  one  thing  you  want  to  re 
member;  you  want  to  be  sure  before  you  blame  the 
Lord  or  other  men  for  a  man's  goin'  wrong,  if  it  ain't 
his  own  fault  at  the  bottom  of  things." 

"  There's  mother,"  cried  Ellen ;  "  there's  mother  and 
Amabel.  Where's  Aunt  Eva?  Oh,  father,  what  do 
you  suppose  has  happened?  Why  do  you  suppose 
mother  is  bringing  Amabel  home?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Andrew,  in  a  troubled  voice. 

He  and  Ellen  rose  and  hastened  forward  to  meet 
Fanny  and  Amabel.  The  child  hung  at  her  aunt's  hand 
in  a  curious,  limp,  disjointed  fashion;  her  little  face, 
even  in  the  half  light,  showed  ghastly.  When  she  saw 
Ellen  she  let  go  of  Fanny's  hand  and  ran  to  her  and 

312 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

threw  both  her  little  arms  around  her  in  a  fierce  clutch 
as  of  terror,  then  she  began  to  sob  wildly,  "  Mamma, 
mamma,  mamma!" 

Fanny  leaned  her  drawn  face  forward,  and  whispered 
to  Andrew  and  Ellen  over  Amabel's  head,  under  cover 
of  her  sobs,  "  Hush,  don't  say  anything.  She's  gone 
mad,  and,  and — she  tried  to — kill  Amabel." 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

AMABEL  was  a  very  nervous  child,  and  she  was  in 
such  terror  from  her  really  terrific  experience  that 
she  threatened  to  go  into  convulsions.  Andrew  went 
over  for  his  mother,  whom  he  had  always  regarded  as 
an  incontestable  authority  about  children.  She,  after 
one  sharp  splutter  of  wrath  at  the  whole  situation,  went 
to  work  with  the  resolution  of  an  old  soldier. 

"  Heat  some  water,  quick,"  said  she  to  Andrew,  "and 
get  me  a  wash-tub." 

Then  she  told  Fanny  to  brew  a  mess  of  sage  tea,  and 
began  stripping  off  Amabel's  clothes. 

"Let  me  alone!  Mamma,  mamma,  mamma!" 
shrieked  the  child.  She  fought  and  clawed  like  a 
little,  wild  animal,  but  the  old  woman,  in  whose  arms 
great  strength  could  still  arise  for  emergencies,  and  in 
whose  spirit  great  strength  had  never  died,  got  the 
better  of  her. 

When  Amabel's  clothing  was  stripped  off,  and  her 
little,  spare  body,  which  was  brown  rather  than  rosy, 
although  she  was  a  blonde,  was  revealed,  she  was  as 
pitiful  to  see  as  a  wound.  EverjT  nerve  and  pulse  in 
that  tiny  frame,  about  which  there  was  not  an  ounce  of 
superfluous  flesh,  seemed  visible.  The  terrible  sen 
sitiveness  of  the  child  appeared  on  the  surface.  She 
shrank,  and  wailed  in  a  low,  monotonous  tone  like  a 
spent  animal  overtaken  by  pursuers.  But  Mrs.  Zelotes 
put  her  in  the  tub  of  warm  water,  and  held  her  down, 
though  Amabel's  face,  emerging  from  it,  had  the  ex 
pression  of  a  wild  thing. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"There,  you  keep  still!"  said  she,  and  her  voice 
was  tender  enough,  though  the  decision  of  it  could  have 
moved  an  army. 

When  Amabel  had  had  her  hot  bath,  and  had  drunk 
her  sage  tea  by  compulsory  gulps,  and  been  tucked 
into  Ellen's  bed,  her  childhood  reasserted  itself.  Grad 
ually  her  body  and  her  bodily  needs  gained  the  ascend 
ancy  over  the  unnatural  strain  of  her  mind.  She  fell 
asleep,  and  lay  like  one  dead.  Then  Ellen  crept  down 
stairs,  though  it  was  almost  midnight,  where  her  father 
and  mother  and  grandmother  were  still  talking  over  the 
matter.  Fanny  seemed  almost  as  bad  as  her  sister. 
It  was  evident  that  there  was  in  the  undisciplined  Loud 
family  a  dangerous  strain  if  too  far  pressed.  She  was 
lying  down  on  the  lounge,  with  Andrew  holding  her 
hand. 

"Oh,  my  God!  Oh,  my  God!  Poor  Eva!"  she  kept 
repeating. 

Then  she  threw  off  Andrew's  hand,  sprang  to  her  feet, 
and  began  to  walk  the  room. 

"She'll  be  as  bad  as  her  sister  if  she  keeps  on,"  said 
Mrs.  Zelotes,  quite  audibly,  but  Fanny  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  that. 

"  What  is  goin'  to  be  done?  Oh,  my  God,  what  is 
goin'  to  be  done?"  she  wailed.  "There  she  is  locked 
up  with  two  men  watchin'  her  lest  she  do  herself  a 
harm,  and  it's  got  to  cost  eighteen  dollars  a  week,  unless 
she's  put  in  with  the  State  poor,  and  then  nobody  knows 
how  she'll  be  treated.  Oh,  poor  Eva,  poor  Eva !  Albert 
Riggs  told  me  there  were  awful  things  done  with  the 
State  poor  in  the  asylums.  He's  been  an  attendant  in 
one.  He  says  we've  got  to  pay  eighteen  dollars  a  week 
if  we  want  to  have  her  cared  for  decently,  and  where 's 
the  money  comin'  from?"  Fanny  raised  her  voice 
higher  still. 

"Where's  the  money  comin'  from?"  she  demanded, 
315 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

with  an  impious  inflection.  It  was  as  if  she  questioned 
that  which  is  outside  of,  and  the  source  of,  life.  Every 
thing  with  this  woman,  whose  whole  existence  had  been 
bound  and  tainted  by  the  need  of  money,  resolved  itself 
into  that  fundamental  question.  All  her  woes  hinged 
upon  it ;  even  her  misery  was  deteriorated  by  mammon. 

"Where's  the  money  comin'  from?"  she  demanded 
again.  "  There's  Jim  gone,  and  all  his  mother's  got 
is  that  little,  mortgaged  place,  and  she  feeble,  and  there 
ain't  a  cent  anywhere,  unless — "  She  turned  fiercely 
to  Andrew,  clutching  him  hard  by  the  arm. 

"  You  must  take  every  cent  of  that  money  out  of  the 
savings-bank,"  she  cried,  "every  cent  of  it.  I'm  your 
wife,  and  I've  been  a  good  wife  to  you,  you  can't  say  I 
haven't." 

"Yes,  of  course  you  have,  poor  girl!  Don't,  don't  1" 
said  Andrew,  soothingly.  He  was  very  pale,  and  shook 
from  head  to  foot  as  he  tried  to  calm  Fanny. 

"Yes,  I've  been  a  good,  faithful  wife,"  Fanny  went 
on,  in  her  high,  hysterical  voice.  "  Even  your  mother 
can't  say  that  I  haven't ;  and  Eva  is  my  own  sister,  and 
you  ought  to  help  her.  Every  cent  of  that  money  will 
have  to  come  out  of  the  savings-bank,  and  the  house 
here  \vill  have  to  be  mortgaged;  it's  only  my  due.  I 
would  do  as  much  for  you  if  it  was  your  sister.  Eva 
ain't  goin'  to  suffer." 

"  I  guess  if  you  mortgage  this  house  that  you  had  from 
your  father,  to  keep  a  woman  whose  husband  has  gone 
off  and  left  her,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  "  I  guess  if  you  don't 
go  and  get  him  back,  and  get  the  law  to  tackle  him!" 

Then  Fanny  turned  on  her.  "  Don't  you  say  a  word," 
said  she.  "  My  sister  ain't  goin'  to  suffer,  I  don't  care 
where  the  money  comes  from.  It's  mine  as  much  as 
Andrew's.  I've  half  supported  the  family  myself  sewin' 
on  wrappers,  and  I've  got  a  right  to  have  my  say.  My 
sister  ain't  goin'  to  suffer!  Oh,  my  God,  what's  goin' 

316 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  become  of  her?  Poor  Eva,  poor  Eva!  Eighteen 
dollars  a  week ;  that's  as  much  as  Andrew  ever  earned. 
Oh,  it  was  awful,  it  was  awful!  There,  when  I  got  in 
there,  she  had  a — knife,  the — carving  knife,  and  she 
had  Amabel's  hair  all  gathered  up  in  one  hand,  and 
her  head  tipped  back,  and  poor  old  mother  Tenny  was 
holding  her  arms,  and  screamin',  and  it  was  all  I  could 
do  to  get  the  knife  away,"  and  Fanny  stripped  up  her 
sleeves,  and  showed  a  glancing  cut  on  her  arm. 

"She  did  that  before  I  got  it  away  from  her,"  she 
said.  "Think  of  it,  my  own  sister!  My  own  sister, 
who  always  thought  so  much  of  me,  and  would  have 
had  her  own  fingers  cut  to  the  bone  before  she  would 
have  let  any  one  touch  me  or  Ellen!  Oh,  poor  Eva, 
poor  Eva!  What  is  goin'  to  become  of  her,  what  is 
goin'  to  become  of  her?" 

Mrs.  Zelotes  wrent  out  of  the  house  with  a  jerk  of  angry 
decision,  and  presently  returned  with  a  bottle  half  full 
of  whiskey. 

"Here,"  said  she  to  Ellen,  "you  pour  out  a  quarter 
of  a  tumbler  of  this,  and  fill  it  up  with  hot  water.  I 
ain't  goin'  to  have  the  whole  family  in  an  asylum  be 
cause  Jim  Tenny  has  run  off  with  another  woman,  if 
I  can  help  it!" 

The  old  woman's  steady  force  of  will  asserted  itself 
over  the  hysterical  nature  of  her  daughter-in-law. 
Fanny  drank  the  whiskey  and  water  and  went  to  bed, 
half  stupefied,  and  Mrs.  Zelotes  went  home. 

"  You  ring  the  bell  in  the  night  if  she's  taken  worse, 
and  I'll  come  over,"  said  she  to  her  son. 

When  Ellen  and  her  father  were  left  alone  they  looked 
at  each  other,  each  with  pity  for  the  other.  Andrew  laid 
a  tender,  trembling  hand  on  the  girl's  shoulder.  "  Some 
how  it  will  all  come  out  right,"  he  whispered.  "You 
go  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep,  and  if  Amabel  wakes  up  and 
makes  any  trouble  you  speak  to  father." 

317 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Don't  worry  about  me,  father/'  returned  Ellen.  "  It's 
you  who  have  the  most  to  worry  over."  Then  she 
added — for  the  canker  of  need  of  money  was  eating 
her  soul,  too — "Father,  what  is  going  to  be  done? 
You  can't  pay  all  that  for  poor  Aunt  Eva.  How  much 
money  have  you  got  in  the  bank?" 

"Not  much,  not  much,  Ellen,"  replied  Andrew,  with 
a  groan. 

"It  wouldn't  last  very  long  at  eighteen  dollars  a 
week?" 

"No,  no." 

"  It  doesn't  seem  as  if  you  ought  to  mortgage  the 
house  when  you  and  mother  are  getting  older.  Fa 
ther—" 

"What,  Ellen?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Ellen,  after  a  little  pause.  It  had 
been  on  her  lips  to  tell  him  that  she  must  go  to  work, 
then  she  refrained.  There  was  something  in  her  fa 
ther's  face  which  forbade  her  doing  so. 

"Go  to  bed,  Ellen,  and  get  rested,"  said  Andrew. 
Then  he  rubbed  his  head  against  hers  with  his  curious, 
dog-like  method  of  caress,  and  kissed  her  forehead. 

"You  go  to  sleep  and  get  rested  yourself,  father," 
said  Ellen. 

"I  guess  I  won't  undress  to-night,  but  I'll  lay  on  the 
lounge,"  said  Andrew. 

"  Well,  you  speak  to  me  if  mother  wakes  up  and  takes 
on  again.  Maybe  I  can  do  something." 

"All  right,  dear  child,"  said  Andrew,  lovingly  and 
wearily.  He  had  a  look  as  if  some  mighty  wind  had 
passed  over  him  and  he  were  beaten  down  under  it, 
except  for  that  one  single  uprearing  of  love  which  no 
tempest  could  fairly  down. 

Ellen  went  up-stairs,  and  lay  down  beside  poor  little 
Amabel  without  undressing  herself.  The  child  stirred, 
but  not  to  awake,  when  she  settled  down  beside  her, 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

and  reached  over  her  poor  little  claw  of  a  hand  to  the 
girl,  who  clasped  it  fervently,  and  slipped  a  protecting 
arm  under  the  tiny  shoulders.  Then  the  little  thing 
nestled  close  to  Ellen,  with  a  movement  of  desperate 
seeking  for  protection.  "There,  there,  darling,  Ellen 
will  take  care  of  you,"  whispered  Ellen.  But  Amabel 
did  not  hear. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE  next  afternoon  poor  Eva  Tenny  was  carried 
away,  and  Andrew  accompanied  the  doctor  who  had 
her  in  charge,  as  being  the  only  available  male  relative. 
As  he  dressed  himself  in  his  Sundciy  suit,  he  was  aware 
— to  such  pitiful  passes  had  financial  straits  brought 
him — of  a  certain  self-congratulation,  that  he  would 
not  be  at  home  when  the  dressmaker  asked  for  money 
that  night,  and  that  no  one  would  expect  him  to  go 
to  the  bank  under  such  circumstances.  But  Andrew, 
in  his  petty  consideration  as  to  personal  benefit  from 
such  dire  calamity,  reckoned  without  another  narrow 
traveller.  Miss  Higgins  stopped  him  as  he  was  going- 
out  of  the  door,  looking  as  if  bound  to  a  funeral  in  his 
shabby  Sunday  black,  with  his  solemn,  sad  face  under 
his  well-brushed  hat. 

"  I  hate  to  say  anything  when  you're  in  such  trouble, 
Mr.  Brewster,"  said  she,  "but  I  do  need  the  money  to 
pay  a  bill,  and  I  was  wondering  if  you  could  leave  what 
was  due  me  yesterday,  and  what  will  be  due  me  to-day." 

But  Fanny  came  with  a  rush  to  Andrew's  relief. 
She  was  in  that  state  of  nervous  tension  that  she 
was  fairly  dangerous  if  irritated.  "Look  here,  Miss 
Higgins,"  said  she.  "We  hesitated  a  good  deal  about 
havin'  you  come  here  to-day,  anyway.  Ellen  wanted 
to  send  you  word  not  to.  We  are  in  such  awful  trouble, 
that  she  said  it  didn't  seem  right  for  her  to  be  thinkin' 
about  new  clothes,  but  I  told  her  she'd  got  to  have  the 
things  if  she  was  going  to  college,  and  so  we  decided  to 
have  you  come,  but  we  'ain't  had  any  time  nor  any  heart 

320 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  think  of  money.  We've  got  plenty  to  pay  you  in 
the  bank,  but  my  husband  'ain't  had  any  time  to  go 
there  this  mornin',  what  with  seein'  the  doctor,  and  get- 
tin'  the  certificate  for  my  poor  sister,  and  all  I've  got  to 
say  is :  if  you're  so  dreadful  afraid  as  all  this  comes  to, 
that  you  have  to  lose  all  sense  of  decency,  and  dun  folks 
so  hard,  in  such  trouble  as  we  be,  you  can  put  on  your 
things  arid  go  jest  as  quick  as  you  have  a  mind  to,  and 
I'll  get  Miss  Patch  to  finish  the  work.  I've  been  more 
than  half  a  mind  to  have  her,  anyway.  I  was  very 
strongly  advised  to.  Lots  of  folks  have  talked  to  me 
against  your  fittin',  but  I've  alwaj^s  had  you,  and  I 
thought  I'd  give  you  the  chance.  Now  if  you  don't 
want  it,  \TOU  jest  pack  up  and  go,  and  the  quicker  the 
better.  You  shall  have  your  pay  as  soon  as  Mr.  Brew- 
ster  can  get  round  after  he  has  carried  my  poor  sister  to 
the  asylum.  You  needn't  worry."  Fanny  said  the 
last  with  a  sarcasm  which  seemed  to  reach  out  with  a 
lash  of  bitterness  like  a  whip.  The  other  woman  winced, 
her  eyes  were  hard,  but  her  voice  was  appeasing. 

"  Now,  I  didn't  think  you'd  take  it  so,  Mrs.  Brewster, 
or  I  wouldn't  have  said  anything,"  she  almost  wheedled. 
"You  know  I  ain't  afraid  of  not  gettin'  my  pay,  I — " 

"  You'd  better  not  be,"  said  Fanny. 

"  Of  course  I  ain't.  I  know  Mr.  Brewster  has  steady 
work,  and  I  know  your  folks  have  got  money." 

"We've  got  mone}^  enough  not  to  be  beholden  to 
anybody,"  said  Fanny.  "Andrew,  you'd  better  be 
goin'  along  or  you'll  be  late." 

Andrew  went  out  of  the  yard  with  his  head  bent  miser 
ably.  He  had  felt  ashamed  of  his  fear,  he  felt  still 
more  ashamed  of  his  relief.  He  wondered,  going  down 
the  street,  if  it  might  not  be  a  happier  lot  to  lose  one's 
wits  like  poor  Eva,  rather  than  have  them  to  the  full 
responsibility  of  steering  one's  self  through  such  straits 
of  misery. 

%  321 


"I  hope  you  won't  think  I  meant  any  harm/'  the 
dressmaker  said  to  Fanny,  quite  humbly. 

There  was  that  about  the  sister  of  another  woman 
who  was  being  carried  off  to  an  insane  asylum  which 
was  fairly  intimidating. 

Miss  Higgins  sewed  meekly  during  the  remainder  of 
the  day,  having  all  the  time  a  wary  eye  upon  Fanny. 
She  went  home  before  supper,  urging  a  headache  as 
an  excuse.  She  was  in  reality  afraid  of  Fanny. 

Andrew  was  inexpressibly  relieved  when  he  reached 
home  to  find  that  the  dressmaker  was  gone,  and  Fanny, 
having  sent  Amabel  to  bed,  was  chiefly  anxious  to 
know  how  her  sister  had  reached  the  asylum.  It  was 
not  until  the  latter  part  of  the  evening  that  she  brought 
up  the  subject  of  the  bank.  "  Do  look  out  to-morrow, 
Andrew  Brewrster,  and  be  sure  to  take  that  money  out 
of  the  bank  to  pay  Miss  Higgins,"  she  said.  "As 
for  being  dunned  again  by  that  woman,  I  won't!  It's 
the  last  time  I'll  ever  have  her,  anyway.  As  far  as 
that  is  concerned,  all  the  money  will  have  to  come  out 
of  the  bank  if  poor  Eva  is  to  be  kept  where  she  is.  How 
much  money  was  there  that  she  had?" 

"Just  fifty -two  dollars  and  seventy  cents,"  replied 
Andrew.  "Jim  had  left  a  little  that  he'd  scraped  to 
gether  somehow,  with  the  letter  he  wrote  to  her,  and 
he  told  her  if  he  had  work  he'd  send  her  more. " 

"I'd  die  before  I'd  touch  it,"  said  Fanny,  fiercely. 
Then  she  looked  at  Andrew  with  sudden  pity.  "  Poor 
old  man,"  she  said;  "it's  mighty  hard  on  you  when 
you're  gettin'  older,  and  you  never  say  a  word  to  com 
plain.  But  I  don't  see  any  other  way  than  to  take  that 
money,  do  you?" 

"No,"  said  Andrew. 

"And  you  don't  think  I'm  hard  to  ask  it,  Andrew?" 

"No." 

"God  knows  if  it  was  \rour  sister  and  my  money, 
322 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

I  would  take  every  dollar.  You  know  I  would,  An 
drew/' 

"Yes,  I  know/'  replied  Andrew7,  hoarsely. 

"Mebbe  she'll  get  better  before  it's  quite  gone," 
said  Fanny.  "You  say  the  doctor  gave  some  hope?" 

"Yes,  he  did,  if  she  was  taken  proper  care  of." 

"Well,  she  shall  be.  I'll  go  out  and  steal  before  she 
sha'n't  have  proper  care.  Poor  Eva!"  Fanny  burst 
into  the  hysterical  wailing  which  had  shaken  her  from 
head  to  foot  at  intervals  during  the  last  twenty-four 
hours.  Andrew  shuddered,  thinking  that  he  detected 
in  her  cries  a  resemblance  to  her  sister's  ravings. 
"  Don't,  don't,  Fanny,"  he  pleaded.  "  Don't,  poor  girl." 
He  put  his  arm  around  her,  and  she  wrept  on  his  shoulder, 
but  with  less  abandon.  "After  all,  we've  got  each 
other,  and  we've  got  Ellen,  haven't  we,  Andrew?" 
she  sobbed. 

"Yes,  thank  God,"  said  Andrew.     "Don't,  Fanny." 

"  That — that's  more  than  money,  more  than  all  the 
wages  for  all  the  labor  in  the  world,  and  that  we've 
got,  haven't  we,  Andrew?  We've  got  what  comes  to 
us  direct  from  God,  haven't  we?  Don't  think  I'm  silly, 
Andrew — haven't  we?" 

"Yes,  yes,  we  have — you  are  right,  Fanny,"  replied 
Andrew. 

"I  guess  I  am,  too,"  she  assented,  looking  up  in 
Andrew's  poor,  worn  face  with  eyes  of  sudden  bravery. 
"We'll  get  along  somehow — don't  you  worry,  old  man. 
I  guess  we'll  corne  out  all  right,  somehow.  We'll  use 
that  monej7  in  the  bank  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  then  f 
guess  some  way  will  be  opened." 

Then  there  came  over  Andrew7 's  exaltation,  to  which 
Fanny's  words  had  spurred  his  flagging  spirit,  a  damper 
;  of  utter  mortification  and  guilt.  He  felt  that  he  could 
bear  this  no  longer.  He  opened  his  mouth  to  tell  her 
what  he  had  done  with  the  money  in  the  bank,  when 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

there  came  a  knock  on  the  door,  and  Fanny  fled  into  the 
bedroom.  She  had  unfastened  her  dress,  and  her  face 
was  stained  with  tears.  She  shut  the  bedroom  door 
tightly  as  Andrew  opened  the  outer  one. 

The  man  who  had  loaned  him  the  money  to  buy  El 
len's  watch  stood  there.  His  name  was  William  Evarts, 
and  he  worked  in  the  stitching  -  room  of  McGuire's 
factory,  in  which  Andrew  was  employed.  He  was 
reported  well-to-do,  and  to  have  amassed  considerable 
money  from  judicious  expenditures  of  his  savings,  and 
to  be  strictly  honest,  but  hard  in  his  dealings.  He  was 
regarded  with  a  covert  disfavor  by  his  fellow-workmen, 
as  if  he  were  one  of  themselves  who  had  somehow  ele 
vated  himself  to  a  superior  height  by  virtue  of  their 
backs.  If  William  Evarts  had  acquired  prosperity 
through  gambling  in  mines,  they  would  have  had  none 
of  that  feeling;  they  would  have  recognized  the  legiti 
macy  of  luck  in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  He  was  in  a 
way  a  reproach  to  them.  "  Why  can't  you  get  along 
and  save  as  well  as  William  Evarts?"  many  a  man's 
monitor  asked  of  him.  "He  doesn't  earn  any  more 
than  you  do,  and  has  had  as  many  expenses  in  his 
family."  The  man  not  being  able  to  answer  the 
question  to  his  own  credit,  disliked  William  Evarts 
who  had  instigated  it. 

Andrew,  who  had  in  his  character  a  vein  of  sterling 
justice,  yet  felt  that  he  almost  hated  William  Evarts 
as  he  stood  there  before  him,  small  and  spare,  snapping 
as  it  were  with  energy  like  electric  wires,  the  strong 
lines  in  his  clean-shaven  face  evident  in  the  glare  of 
the  street-lamp. 

"Good-evening,"  Andrew  said,  and  he  spoke  like 
a  criminal  before  a  judge,  and  at  that  moment  he  felt 
like  one. 

"Good-evening,"  responded  the  other  man.  Then 
he  added,  in  a  hushed  voice  at  first,  for  he  had  fineness 

324 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  appreciate  a  sort  of  indecency  in  dunning,  in  asking 
a  man  for  even  his  rightful  due,  and  he  had  a  regard 
for  possible  listening  ears  of  femininity,  "  I  was  passing 
by,  and  I  thought  I'd  call  and  see  if  it  was  convenient 
for  you  to  pay  me  that  money. " 

"I'm  sorry,"  Andrew  responded,  with  utter  subjec 
tion.  He  looked  and  felt  ignoble.  "  I  haven't  got  it, 
Evarts." 

"When  are  you  going  to  have  it?"  asked  the  other, 
in  a  slightly  raised,  ominous  voice. 

"Just  as  soon  as  I  can  possibly  get  it,"  replied  An 
drew,  softly  and  piteously.  Ellen's  chamber  was 
directly  overhead.  He  thought  of  the  possibility  of 
her  overhearing. 

"Look  at  here,  Andrew  Brewster,"  said  the  other 
man,  and  this  time  with  brutal,  pitiless  force.  When 
it  came  to  the  prospect  of  losing  money  he  became 
as  merciless  as  a  machine.  Something  diabolical  in 
remorselessness  seemed  to  come  to  the  surface,  and 
reveal  wheels  of  grinding  for  his  fellow-men.  "  Look  at 
here,"  he  said,  "  I  want  to  know  right  out,  and  no  dodg 
ing.  Have  you  got  the  money  to  pay  me — yes  or  no?" 

"No,"  said  Andrew  then,  with  a  manliness  born  of 
desperation.  He  had  the  feeling  of  one  who  will  die 
fighting.  He  wished  that  Evarts  would  speak  lower 
on  account  of  Ellen,  but  he  was  prepared  to  face  even 
that.  The  man's  speech  came  with  the  gliddering 
rush  of  an  electric  car ;  it  wras  a  concentration  of  words 
into  one  intensity  of  meaning;  he  elided  everything 
possible,  he  ran  all  his  words  together.  He  spoke 
something  in  this  wise:  " GoddamnyouAndrewBrew- 
ster,  for  comin'to  borrow  money  to  buy  your  girl  a  watch 
when  you  had  nothin'  to  pay  for'twith,  what  business  had 
yourgirlwithawatchanyhowj'dliket'know?  Mygirl'ain't 
got  no  watch,  rveputmymoneyinthebank.  It'srobbery. 
Fllhavethela\vonye.  Fllsueyou.  I'll — " 

325 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

At  that  moment  something  happened.  The  man, 
William  Evarts,  who  was  talking  with  a  vociferousness 
which  seemed  cutting  and  lacerating  to  the  ear,  who 
was  brandishing  an  arm  for  emphasis  in  a  circle  of  fren 
zy,  fairly  jumped  to  one  side.  The  girl,  Ellen  Brew- 
ster,  in  a  light  wrapper,  which  she  had  thrown  over 
her  night-gown,  came  writh  such  a  speed  down  the  stairs 
which  led  to  the  entry  directly  before  the  door,  that  she 
seemed  to  be  flying.  White  ruffles  eddied  around  her 
little  feet,  her  golden  hair  was  floating  out  like  a  flag. 
She  came  close  to  William  Evarts.  "  Will  you  please 
not  speak  so  loud,"  said  she,  in  a  voice  which  her  father 
had  never  heard  from  her  lips  before.  It  was  a  voice 
of  pure  command,  and  of  command  which  carried  with 
it  the  consciousness  of  power  to  enforce.  She  stood 
before  William  Evarts,  and  her  fine  smallness  seemed 
intensified  by  her  spirit  to  magnificence.  The  man 
shrank  back  a  little,  he  had  the  impression  as  of  some 
one  overtowering  him,  and  yet  the  girl  came  scarcely 
to  his  shoulder.  "  Please  do  not  speak  so  loud,  you 
will  wake  Amabel,"  she  said,  and  Evarts  muttered,  like 
a  dog  under  a  whip,  that  he  didn't  \vani  to  wake  her 
up. 

"You  must  not,"  said  Ellen.  "Now  here  is  the 
wratch  and  chain.  I  suppose  that  will  do  as  wrell  as 
your  money  if  you  cannot  afford  to  wait  for  my  father 
to  pay  you.  My  father  will  pay  you  in  time.  lie  has 
never  borrowed  anything  of  any  man  wrhich  he  has  not 
meant  to  pay  back,  and  will  not  pay  back.  If  you  can 
not  afford  to  wait,  take  the  watch  and  chain." 

The  man  looked  at  her  stupefied. 

"Here,"  said  Ellen;  "take  it." 

"I  don't  want  your  wratch  an'  chain,"  muttered  Ev 
arts. 

"  You  have  either  got  to  take  them  or  wait  for  your 
money,"  said  Ellen. 

326 


"I'll  wait,"  said  Evarts.  He  was  looking  at  the 
girl's  face  with  mingled  sentiments  of  pity,  admiration, 
and  terror. 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  Ellen.  "I  will  promise  you, 
and  my  father  will,  that  you  shall  have  your  money 
in  time,  but  how  long  do  you  want  to  wait?" 

"I'll  wait  any  time.  I  ain't  in  any  straits  for  the 
money,  if  I  get  it  in  the  end/'  said  Evarts. 

"You  will  get  it  in  the  end,"  said  Ellen.  Evarts 
turned  to  Andrew. 

"  Look  here,  give  me  your  note  for  six  months,"  said 
he,  "  and  we'll  call  it  all  right. " 

"All  right,"  said  Andrew,  again. 

"If  you  are  not  satisfied  with  that,"  said  Ellen,  with 
a  tone  as  if  she  were  conferring  inestimable  benefits, 
so  proud  it  was,  "you  can  take  the  watch  and  chain. 
It  is  not  hurt  in  the  least.  Here."  She  was  fairly 
insolent.  Evarts  regarded  her  with  a  mixture  of 
admiration  and  terror.  He  told  somebody  the  next 
day  that  Andrew  Brewster  had  a  stepper  of  a  daughter, 
but  he  did  not  give  his  reasons  .for  the  statement.  He 
had  a  sense  of  honor,  and  he  had  been  in  love  with  a 
girl  as  young  before  he  married  his  wife,  who  had  been 
a  widow  older  than  he,  worth  ten  thousand  dollars  from 
her  first  husband.  He  could  no  more  have  taken  the 
girl's  watch  and  chain  than  he  could  have  killed  her. 

"I'm  quite  satisfied,"  he  replied  to  her,  making  a  re- 
pellant  motion  towards  the  watch  and  dangling  chain 
glittering  in  the  electric-light. 

"Very  well,  then,"  said  Ellen,  and  she  threw  the 
chain  over  her  neck. 

"You  just  bring  that  I  0  U  to  the  shop  to-mor- 
mor,"  said  Evarts  to  Andrew;  then,  with  a  "Good- 
evening,"  he  was  off.  They  heard  him  hail  an  electric- 
car  passing,  and  that,  although  he  never  took  a  car, 
but  walked  to  save  the  fare.  He  had  been  often  heard 

327 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  say  that  he  for  one  did  not  support  the  street  rail 
road. 

After  he  had  gone,  Ellen  turned  to  her  father,  and 
flung  a  silent  white  arm  slipping  from  her  sleeve  loose 
around  his  neck,  and  pulled  his  head  to  her  shoulder. 
"  Now  look  here,  father/'  she  said,  "  you've  been  through 
lots  to-day,  and  you'd  better  go  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep. 
I  don't  think  mother  was  waked  up — if  she  had  been, 
she  would  have  been  out  here." 

"Look  here,  Ellen,  I  want  to  tell  you,"  Andrew  be 
gan,  pitifully.  He  was  catching  his  breath  like  a  child 
with  sobs. 

"I  don't  want  to  hear  anything,"  replied  Ellen,  firm 
ly.  "Whatever  you  did  was  right,  father." 

"I  ought  to  tell  you,  Ellen!" 

"You  ought  to  tell  me  nothing,"  said  Ellen.  "You 
are  all  tired  out,  father.  You  can't  do  anything  that 
isn't  right  for  me.  Now  go  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep." 

Ellen  stroked  her  father's  thin  gray  hair  with  ex 
actly  the  same  tender  touch  with  which  he  had  so  often 
stroked  her  golden  locks.  It  was  an  inheritance  of 
love  reverting  to  its  original  source.  She  kissed  him 
on  his  lined  forehead  with  her  flower-like  lips,  then  she 
pushed  him  gently  away.  "  Go  softly,  and  don't  wake 
mother,"  whispered  she;  "and,  father,  there's  no  need 
to  trouble  her  with  this.  Good-night." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

ELLEN'S  deepest  emotion  was  pity  for  her  father, 
so  intense  that  it  was  actual  physical  pain. 

"  Poor  father  !  Poor  father  !  He  had  to  borrow 
the  money  to  buy  me  my  watch  and  chain/'  she  kept 
repeating  to  herself.  "Poor  father!" 

To  her  New  England  mind,  borrowing  seemed  almost 
like  robbing.  She  actually  felt  as  if  her  father  had 
committed  a  crime  for  love  of  her,  but  all  she  looked 
at  was  the  love,  not  the  guilt.  Suddenly  a  conviction 
which  fairly  benumbed  her  came  over  her — the  money 
in  the  savings-bank ;  that  little  hoard,  which  had  been 
to  the  imagination  of  herself  and  her  mother  a  sheet- 
anchor  against  poverty,  must  be  gone.  "  Father  must 
have  used  it  for  something  unbeknown  to  mother,"  she 
said  to  herself-  "he  must,  else  he  would  not  have 
told  Mr.  Evarts  that  he  could  not  pay  him."  It  was 
a  hot  night,  but  the  girl  shivered  as  she  realized  for 
the  first  time  the  meaning  of  the  wolf  at  the  door. 
"All  we've  got  left  is  this  house — this  house  and — 
and  —  our  hands,"  thought  Ellen.  She  saw  before 
her  her  father's  poor,  worn  hands,  her  mother's  thin, 
tired  hands,  jerking  the  thread  in  and  out  of  those 
shameful  wrappers;  then  she  looked  at  her  own,  as 
yet  untouched  by  toil,  as  white  and  small  and  fair  as 
flowers.  She  thought  of  the  four  years  before  her  at 
college,  four  years  before  she  could  earn  anything — 
and  in  the  mean  time?  She  looked  at  the  pile  of 
her  school-books  on  the  table.  She  had  been  study 
ing  hard  all  summer.  The  thirst  for  knowledge  was 

329 


THE     PORTION     OP     LABOR 

as  intense  in  her  as  the  thirst  for  stimulants  in  a 
drunkard. 

"  I  ought  to  give  up  going  to  college,  and  go  to  work 
in  the  shop,"  Ellen  said  to  herself,  and  she  said  it  as  one 
might  drive  a  probing-knife  into  a  sore.  "  I  ought  to," 
she  repeated.  And  yet  she  was  far  from  resolving 
to  give  up  college.  She  began  to  argue  with  herself  the 
expediency,  supposing  that  the  money  in  the  bank 
was  gone,  of  putting  a  mortgage  on  the  house.  If  her 
father  continued  to  have  work,  they  might  get  along 
and  pay  for  her  aunt,  who  might,  as  the  doctor  had  said, 
not  be  obliged  to  remain  long  in  the  asylum  if  properly 
cared  for.  Would  it  not,  after  all,  be  better,  since  by  a 
course  at  college  she  would  be  fitted  to  command  a  larger 
salary  than  she  could  in  any  other  way.  "  I  can  sup 
port  them  all,"  reflected  Ellen.  At  that  time  the  thought 
of  Robert  Lloyd,  and  that  awakening  of  heart  which  he 
had  brought  to  pass,  were  in  abeyance.  Old  powers 
had  asserted  themselves.  This  love  for  her  own  blood 
and  their  need  came  between  her  and  this  new  love, 
half  of  the  senses,  half  of  the  spirit. 

Amabel  waked  up  in  the  early  sultry  dawn  of  the 
summer  day  with  the  bewilderment  of  one  in  a  new 
world.  She  stared  at  the  walls  of  the  room,  at  the 
shaft  of  sunlight  streaming  in  the  window,  then  at 
Ellen. 

"Where  am  I?"  she  inquired,  in  a  loud,  querulous 
plaint.  Then  she  remembered,  but  she  did  not  cry; 
instead,  her  little  face  took  on  a  painfully  old  look. 

"  You  are  here  with  cousin  Ellen,  darling,  don't  you 
know?"  Ellen  replied,  leaning  over  her,  and  kissing  her. 

Amabel  wriggled  impatiently  away,  and  faced  to 
the  wall.  "Yes,  I  know,"  said  she. 

That  morning  Amabel  would  not  eat  any  breakfast, 
and  Fann}7  suggested  that  Ellen  take  her  for  a  ride  on 
the  street-cars.  "  We  can  get  along  without  you  for  an 

330 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

hour/'  she  whispered,  "and  I  am  afraid  that  child  will 
be  sick." 

So  Ellen  and  Amabel  set  out,  leaving  Fanny  and  the 
dressmaker  at  work,  and  when  they  were  returning  past 
the  factories  the  noon  whistles  were  blowing  and  the 
operatives  were  streaming  forth. 

Ellen  was  surprised  to  see  her  father  among  them  as 
the  car  swept  past.  He  walked  down  the  street  towards 
home,  his  dinner-bag  dangling  at  his  side,  his  back 
more  bent  than  ever. 

She  wondered  uneasily  if  her  father  was  ill,  for  he 
never  went  home  to  dinner.  She  looked  back  at  him 
as  the  car  swept  past,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  see  her. 
lie  walked  with  an  air  of  seeing  nothing,  covering  the 
ground  like  an  old  dog  with  some  patient,  dumb  end 
in  view,  heeding  nothing  by  the  way.  It  puzzled  her 
also  that  her  father  had  come  out  of  Lloyd's  instead  of 
McGuire's,  where  he  had  been  employed  all  summer. 
Ellen,  after  she  reached  home,  watched  anxiously 
for  her  father  to  come  into  the  yard,  but  she  did 
not  see  him.  She  assisted  about  the  dinner,  which  was 
a  little  extra  on  account  of  the  dressmaker,  and  all  the 
time  she  glanced  with  covert  anxiety  at  the  window, 
but  her  father  did  not  pass  it.  Finally,  when  she  went 
out  to  the  pump  for  a  pitcher  of  water,  she  set  the  pitcher 
down,  and  sped  to  the  orchard  like  a  wild  thing.  A 
suspicion  had  seized  her  that  her  father  was  there. 

Sure  enough,  there  he  was,  but  instead  of  lying  face 
down  on  the  grass,  as  he  had  done  before,  he  was  sit 
ting  back  against  a  tree.  He  had  the  air  of  having 
settled  into  such  a  long  lease  of  despair  that  he  had 
sought  the  most  comfortable  position  for  it.  His  face 
was  ghastly.  He  looked  at  Ellen  as  she  drew  near, 
and  opened  his  mouth  as  if  to  speak,  but  instead  he 
only  caught  his  breath.  He  stared  hard  at  her,  then 
he  closed  his  eyes  as  if  not  to  see  her,  and  motioned  her 

331 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

away  with  one  hand  with  an  inarticulate  noise  in  his 
throat. 

But  Ellen  sat  down  beside  him.  She  caught  his  two 
hands  and  looked  at  him.  "Father,  look  at  me,"  said 
she,  and  Andrew  opened  his  eyes.  The  expression  in 
them  was  dreadful,  compounded  of  shame  and  despair 
and  dread,  but  the  girl's  met  them  with  a  sort  of  glad 
triumph  and  strength  of  love.  "  Now  look  here,  father," 
she  said,  "you  tell  me  all  about  it.  I  didn't  want  to 
know  last  night.  Now  I  want  to  know.  What  is  the 
matter?" 

Andrew  continued  to  look  at  her,  then  all  at  once 
he  spoke  with  a  kind  of  hoarse  shout.  "  I'm  discharged  I 
I'm  discharged,"  he  said,  "from  McGuire's;  they've 
got  a  boy  who  can  move  faster  in  my  place — a  boy  for 
less  pay,  who  can  move  faster.  I  hurried  over  to  Lloyd 's 
to  see  if  they  would  take  me  on  again;  I've  always 
thought  I  should  get  back  into  Lloyd's,  and  I  saw  the 
foreman,  and  he  told  me  to  my  face  that  I  was  too  old, 
that  they  wanted  younger  men.  And  I  went  into  the 
office  to  see  Lloyd,  pushed  past  the  foreman,  with  him 
damning  me,  and  I  saw  Lloyd." 

"Was  young  Mr.  Lloyd  there?"  asked  Ellen,  with 
white  lips. 

"No;  I  guess  he  had  gone  to  dinner.  And  Lkryd 
looked  at  me,  and  I  believe  he  counted  every  gray  hair 
in  my  head,  and  he  saw  my  back,  and  he  saw  my  hands, 
and  he  said — he  said  I  was  too  old." 

Andrew  snatched  his  hands  from  Ellen's  grasp, 
pressed  them  to  his  face,  and  broke  into  weeping.  "  Oh, 
my  God,  I'm  too  old,  Fin  too  old!"  he  sobbed;  "I'm 
out  of  it!  I'm  too  old!" 

Ellen  regarded  him,  and  her  face  had  developed  lines 
of  strength  hitherto  unrevealed.  There  was  no  pity 
in  it,  hardly  love;  she  looked  angry  and  powerful. 
"  Father,  stop  doing  so,  and  look  at  me,"  she  said.  She 

332 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

dragged  her  father's  hands  from  his  face,  and  he  stared 
at  her  with  his  inflamed  eyes,  half  terrified,  half  sus 
tained.  At  that  moment  he  realized  a  strength  of  sup 
port  as  from  his  own  lost  youth,  a  strength  as  of  eternal 
progress  which  was  more  to  be  relied  upon  than  other 
human  strength.  For  the  first  time  he  leaned  on  his 
child,  and  realized  with  wonder  the  surety  of  the  stay. 

"  Now,  father,  you  stop  doing  so,"  said  Ellen.  "  You 
can  get  work  somewhere;  you  are  not  old.  Call  your 
self  old!  It  is  nonsense.  Are  you  going  to  give  in 
and  be  old  because  two  men  tell  you  that  you  are? 
What  if  your  hair  is  gray!  Ever  so  many  young  men 
have  gray  hair.  You  are  not  old,  and  you  can  get 
work  somewhere.  McGuire's  and  Lloyd's  are  not  the 
only  factories  in  the  country." 

"  That  ain't  all,"  said  Andrew,  with  eyes  like  a  be 
seeching  dog's  on  her  face. 

"I  know  that  isn't  all,"  said  Ellen.  "You  needn't 
be  af r.  ud  to  tell  me,  father.  You  have  taken  the  money 
out  of  the  savings-bank  for  something." 

Again  Andrew  would  have  snatched  his  hands  from 
the  girl's  and  hidden  his  face,  but  she  held  them 
fast.  "Yes,  I  have,"  he  admitted,  in  a  croaking 
voice. 

"Well,  what  if  you  have?"  asked  Ellen.  "You  had 
a  right  to  take  it  out,  didn't  you?  You  put  it  in.  I 
don't  know  of  anybody  who  had  a  better  right  to  take 
it  out  than  you,  if  you  wanted  to." 

Andrew  stared  at  her,  as  if  he  did  not  hear  rightly. 
"You  don't  know  what  I  did  with  it,  Ellen,"  he  stam 
mered. 

"  It  is  nobody's  business,"  replied  Ellen.  She  had 
an  unexplained  sensation  as  if  she  wrere  holding  fast 
to  her  father's  slipping  self-respect  which  was  dragging 
hard  at  her  restraining  love. 

"  I  put  it  in  a  worthless  gold-mine  out  in  Colorado — 

333 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  same  one  your  uncle  Jim  lost  his  money  in," 
groaned  Andrew. 

"Well,  it  was  your  money,  and  you  had  a  perfect 
right  to,"  said  Ellen.  "Of  course  you  thought  the 
mine  was  all  right  or  you  wouldn't  have  put  the  money 
into  it." 

"God  knows  I  did." 

"  Well,  the  best  business  men  in  the  world  make  mis 
takes.  It  is  nobody's  business  whether  you  took  the 
money  out  or  riot,  or  what  you  used  it  for,  father." 

"  I  don't  see  how  the  bills  are  going  to  be  paid,  and 
there's  your  poor  aunt,"  said  Andrew.  lie  was  leaning 
more  and  more  heavily  upon  this  new  tower  of  strength, 
this  tender  little  girl  whom  he  had  hitherto  shielded 
and  supported.  The  beautiful  law  of  reverse  of  nature 
had  come  into  force. 

Ellen  set  her  mouth  firmly.  "Don't  you  worry, 
father,"  said  she.  "  We  will  think  of  some  way  out 
of  it.  There's  a  little  money  to  pay  for  Aunt  Eva,  and 
mavbe  she  won't  be  sick  long.  Does  mother  know, 
father?" 

"She  don't  know  about  anything,  Ellen,"  replied 
Andrew,  wretchedly. 

"  I  know  she  doesn't  know  about  your  getting  thrown 
out  of  work — but  about  the  bank?" 

"No,  Ellen." 

Ellen  rose.  "  You  stay  here,  where  it  is  cool,  till  I 
ring  the  dinner-bell,  father,"  she  said. 

"I  don't  want  any  dinner,  child." 

"  Yes,  you  do,  father.  If  you  don't  eat  your  dinner 
you  will  be  sick.  You  come  when  the  bell  rings." 

Andrew  knew  that  he  should  obey,  as  he  saw  the 
girl's  light  dress  disappear  among  the  trees. 

Ellen  went  back  to  the  pump,  and  carried  her  pitcher 
of  water  into  the  house.  Her  mother  met  her  at  the 
door.  "  Where  have  you  been  all  this  time,  Ellen  Brew- 

334 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ster?"  she  asked,  in  a  high  voice.  "Everything  is 
getting  as  cold  as  a  stone." 

Ellen  caught  her  mother's  arm  and  drew  her  into 
the  kitchen,  and  closed  the  door.  Fanny  turned  pale 
as  death  and  looked  at  her.  "  Well,  what  has  happened 
now?"  she  said.  "  Is  your  father  killed?" 

"No,"  said  Ellen,  "but  he  is  out  of  work,  and  he 
can't  get  a  job  at  Lloyd's,  and  he  took  all  that  money 
out  of  the  savings-bank  a  long  time  ago,  and  put  it 
into  that  gold-mine  that  Uncle  Jim  lost  in." 

Fanny  clutched  the  girl's  arm  in  a  grasp  so  hard  that 
it  left  a  blue  mark  on  the  tender  flesh.  She  looked  at 
her,  but  did  not  speak  one  word. 

"Now,  mother,"  said  Ellen,  "you  must  not  say  one 
word  to  father  to  scold  him.  He's  got  enough  to  bear 
as  it  is." 

Fanny  pushed  her  away  with  sudden  fierceness. 
"  I  guess  I  don't  need  to  have  my  own  daughter  teach 
me  mv  duty  to  my  husband,"  said  she.  "  Where  is 
he?" 

"Down  in  the  orchard." 

"  Well,  ring  the  bell  for  dinner  loud,  so  he  can  hear 
it." 

When  Andrew  came  shuffling  wearily  up  from  the 
orchard,  Fanny  met  him  at  the  corner  of  the  house,  out 
of  sight  from  the  windows.  She  was  flushed  and  per 
spiring,  clad  in  a  coarse  cotton  wrapper,  revealing  all 
her  unkempt  curves.  She  went  close  to  him,  and  thrust 
one  large  arm  through  his.  "Look  here,  Andrew," 
said  she,  in  the  tenderest  voice  he  had  ever  heard  from 
her,  a  voice  so  tender  that  it  was  furious,  "  you  needn't 
say  one  word.  What's  done's  done.  We  shall  get 
along  somehow.  I  ain't  afraid.  Come  in  and  eat  your 
dinner!" 

The  dressmaking  work  went  on  as  usual  after  din 
ner.  Andrew  had  disappeared,  going  down  the  road 

335 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

towards  the  shop.     He  tried  for  a  job  at  Briggs's,  with 
no  success,  then  drifted  to  the  corner  grocery. 

Ellen  sat  until  nearly  three  o'clock  sewing.  Then 
she  went  up-stairs  and  got  her  hat,  and  went  secretly 
out  of  the  back  door,  through  the  west  yard,  that  her 
mother  should  not  see  her.  However,  her  grand 
mother  called  after  her,  and  wanted  to  know  where 
she  was  going. 

"  Down  street,  on  an  errand,"  answered  Ellen. 

"  Well,  keep  on  the  shady  side,"  called  her  grand 
mother,  thinking  the  girl  was  bound  to  the  stores  for 
some  dressmaking  supplies. 

That  night  Miss  Higgins  did  not  ask  for  her  pay; 
she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  wait  until  her  week  was 
finished.  She  went  away  after  supper,  and  Ellen  fol 
lowed  her  to  the  door.  "We  won't  want  you  to-mor 
row,  Miss  Higgins,"  said  she,  "and  here  is  your  pay." 
With  that  she  handed  a  roll  of  bills  to  the  woman,  who 
stared  at  her  in  amazement  and  growing  resentment. 

"If  my  work  ain't  satisfactory,"  said  she — 

"Your  work  is  satisfactory,"  said  Ellen,  "but  I  don't 
want  any  more  work  done.  I  am  not  going  to  college." 

There  was  something  conclusive  and  intimidating 
about  Ellen's  look  and  tone.  The  dressmaker,  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  regard  her  as  a  child,  stared  at 
her  with  awe,  as  before  a  sudden  revelation  of  force. 
Then  she  took  her  money,  and  went  down  the  walk. 

When  Ellen  re-entered  the  sitting-room  her  father  and 
mother,  who  had  overheard  every  word,  confronted  her. 

"Ellen  Brewster,  what  does  this  mean?" 

Andrew  looked  as  if  he  would  presently  fall  to  the 
floor. 

"  It  means,"  said  Ellen — and  she  looked  at  her  parents 
with  the  brave  enthusiasm  of  a  soldier  on  her  beauti 
ful  face — she  even  laughed — "  it  means  that  I  am  going 
to  work — I  have  got  a  job  in  Lloyd's." 

336 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

When  Ellen  made  that  announcement;  her  mother 
did  a  strange  thing.  She  ran  swiftly  to  a  corner  of 
the  room,  and  stood  there,  staring  at  the  girl,  with  back 
hugged  close  to  the  intersection  of  the  walls,  as  if  she 
would  withdraw  as  far  as  possible  from  some  threat 
ening  ill.  At  that  moment  she  looked  alarmingly  like 
her  sister;  there  was  something  about  Fanny  in  her 
corner,  calculated,  when  all  circumstances  were  taken 
into  consideration,  to  make  one's  blood  chill,  but  An 
drew  did  not  look  at  her.  He  was  intent  upon  Ellen, 
and  the  facing  of  the  worst  agony  of  his  life,  and  Ellen 
was  intent  upon  him.  She  loved  her  mother,  but  the 
fear  as  to  her  father's  suffering  moved  her  more  than 
her  mother's.  She  was  more  like  her  father,  and  could 
better  estimate  his  pain  under  stress.  Andrew  rose  to 
his  feet  and  stood  looking  at  Ellen,  and  she  at  him. 
She  tried  to  meet  the  drawn  misery  and  incredulous- 
ness  of  his  face  with  a  laugh  of  reassurance. 

"Yes,  I've  got  a  job  in  Lloyd's,"  said  she.  "What's 
the  matter,  father?" 

Then  Andrew  made  an  almost  inarticulate  response ; 
it  sounded  like  a  croak  in  an  unknown  tongue. 

Ellen  continued  to  look  at  him,  and  to  laugh. 

"Now  look  here,  father,"  said  she.  "There  is  no 
need  for  you  and  mother  to  feel  bad  over  this.  I  have 
thought  it  all  over,  and  I  have  made  up  my  mind.  I 
have  got  a  good  high-school  education  now,  and  the 
four  years  I  should  have  to  spend  at  Vassar  I  could 
do  nothing  at  all.  There  is  awful  need  of  money  here, 
and  not  only  for  us,  but  for  Aunt  Eva  and  Amabel." 

"You  sha'n't  do  it!"  Andrew  burst  out  then,  in  a 
great  shout  of  rage.  "I'll  mortgage  the  house — that'll 
last  awhile.  You  sha'n't,  I  say!  You  are  my  child, 
and  you've  got  to  listen.  You  sha'n't,  I  say!" 

"  Now,  father,"  responded  Ellen's  voice,  which  seemed 
to  have  in  it  a  wonderful  tone  of  firmness  against  which 

337 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

his  agonized  vociferousness  broke  as  against  a  rock, 
"  this  is  nonsense.  You  must  not  mortgage  the  house. 
The  house  is  all  you  have  got  for  your  and  mother's 
old  age.  Do  you  think  I  could  go  to  college,  and  let 
you  give  up  the  house  in  order  to  keep  me  there?  And 
as  for  grandma  Brewster,  you  know  what's  hers  is  hers 
as  long  as  she  lives — we  don't  want  to  think  of  that. 
I  have  got  this  job  now,  which  is  only  three  dollars  a 
week,  but  in  a  year  the  foreman  said  I  might  earn  fif 
teen  or  eighteen,  if  I  was  quick  and  smart,  and  I  will 
be  quick  and  smart.  It  is  the  best  thing  for  us  all, 
father." 

"You  sha'n't!"  shouted  Andrew.  "I  say  you 
sha'n't!" 

Suddenly  Andrew  sank  into  a  chair,  his  head  lopped, 
he  kept  moving  a  hand  before  his  eyes,  as  if  he  were 
brushing  away  cobwebs.  Then  Fanny  came  out  of 
her  corner. 

"Get  the  camphor,  quick!''  she  said  to  Ellen.  "I 
dun'no'  but  you've  killed  your  father." 

Fanny  held  her  husband's  head  against  her  shoul 
der,  and  rubbed  his  hands  frantically.  The  awful 
strained  look  had  gone  from  her  face.  Ellen  came 
with  the  camphor,  and  then  went  for  water.  Fanny 
rubbed  Andrew's  forehead  with  the  camphor,  and  held 
the  bottle  to  his  nose.  "Smell  it,  Andrew,"  she  said, 
in  a  voice  of  ineffable  tenderness  and  pity.  Ellen  re 
turned  with  a  glass  of  water,  and  Andrew  swallowed 
a  little  obediently.  Finally  he  made  out  to  stagger 
into  the  bedroom  with  Fanny's  and  Ellen's  assistance. 
He  sat  down  weakly  on  the  bed,  and  Fanny  lifted  his 
legs  up.  Then  he  sank  and  closed  his  eyes  as  if  he 
were  spent.  In  fact,  he  was.  At  that  moment  of  El 
len's  announcement  some  vital  energy  in  him  suddenly 
relaxed  like  overstrained  rubber.  His  face,  sunken 
in  the  pillow,  was  both  ghastly  and  meek.  It  was  the 

338  * 


THE     PORTION     OK     LABOR 

face  of  a  man  who  could  fight  no  more.     Ellen  knelt 
down  beside  him,  sobbing. 

"Oh,  father!"  she  sobbed,  "I  think  it  is  for  the  best. 
Dear  father,  you  won't  feel  bad." 

"No,"  said  Andrew,  faintly.  There  was  a  slight 
twitching  in  his  hand,  as  if  he  wished  to  put  it  on  her 
head,  then  it  lay  thin  and  inert  on  the  coverlid.  He 
tried  to  smile,  but  his  face  settled  into  that  look  of  utter 
acquiescence  of  fate. 

"I  s'pose  it's  the  best  you  can  do,"  he  muttered. 

"Have  you  told  Miss  Lennox?"  gasped  Fannv. 

"Yes." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"She  was  sony,  but  she  made  no  objection,"  replied 
Ellen,  evasively. 

Fanny  came  forward  abruptly,  caught  up  the  cam 
phor-bottle,  and  began  bathing  Andrew's  forehead 
again. 

"We  won't  say  any  more  about  it,"  said  she,  in  a 
harsh  voice.  "You'd  better  go  over  to  your  grandma 
Brewster's  and  see  if  she  has  got  any  whiskey.  I  think 
your  father  needs  to  take  something." 

"I  don't  want  anything,"  said  Andrew,  feebly. 

"Yes,  you  do,  too,  you  are  as  white  as  a  sheet.  Go 
over  and  ask  her,  Ellen." 

Ellen  ran  across  the  yard  to  her  grandmother's,  and 
the  old  woman  met  her  at  the  door.  She  seemed  to 
have  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  trouble. 

"What's  the  matter?"  she  asked. 

"  Father's  a  little  faint,  and  mother  wants  me  to  bor 
row  the  whiskey,"  said  Ellen.  She  had  not  at  that  time 
the  courage  to  tell  her  grandmother  what  she  had  done. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  ran  into  the  house,  and  came  out  with 
the  bottle. 

"I'm  comin'  over,"  she  announced.  "I'm  kind  of 
worried  about  your  father ;  he  'ain't  looked  well  for  some 

339 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

time.     I    wonder   what   made   him   faint.     Maybe   he 
ate  something  which  hurt  him." 

Ellen  said  nothing.  She  fled  up-stairs  to  her  cham 
ber,  as  her  grandmother  entered  the  bedroom.  She 
felt  cowardly,  but  she  thought  that  she  would  let  her 
mother  tell  the  news. 

She  sat  down  and  waited.  She  knew  that  presently 
she  would  hear  the  old  woman's  voice  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs.  She  was  resolved  upon  her  course,  and  knew 
that  she  could  not  be  shaken  in  it,  yet  she  dreaded  un 
speakably  the  outburst  of  grief  and  anger  which  she 
knew  would  come  from  her  grandmother.  She  felt 
as  if  she  had  faced  two  fires,  and  now  before  the  third 
she  quailed  a  little. 

It  was  no^  ^..iig  before  the  expected  summons  came. 

"  Elle>~          -n  Brewster,  come  down  here!" 

Ellei^  j^t  _own.  Her  grandmother  met  her  at 
the  foot  ..£.  stairs.  She  was  trembling  from  head 

to  foot;   ner  mouth  twisted  and  wavered  as  if  she  had 
the  palsy. 

"Look  here,  Ellen  Brewster,  this  ain't  true?"  she 
stammered. 

"Yes,  grandma,"  answered  Ellen.  "I  have  thought 
it  all  over,  and  it  is  the  only  thing  for  me  to  do." 

Her  grandmother  clutched  her  arm,  and  the  girl  felt 
as  if  she  were  in  the  grasp  of  another  will,  which  was 
more  conclusive  than  steel. 

"You  sha'n't!"  she  said,  whispering,  lest  Andrew 
should  hear,  but  with  intense  force. 

"I've  got  to,  grandma.  We've  got  to  have  the 
money." 

"  The  money,"  said  the  old  woman,  with  an  inflection 
of  voice  and  a  twist  of  her  features  indicative  of  the 
most  superb  scorn — "the  money!  I  guess  you  ain't 
goin'  to  lose  such  a  chance  as  that  for  money.  I  guess 
I've  got  two  hundred  and  ten  dollars  a  year  income, 

340 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  I'll  give  up  a  half  of  that,  and  Andrew  can  put  a 
mortgage  on  the  house,  if  that  Tenny  woman  has  got 
to  be  supported  because  her  husband  has  run  off  and 
left  her  and  her  young  one.  You  sha'n't  go  to  work 
in  a  shop." 

"I've  got  to,  grandma,"  said  Ellen. 

The  old  woman  looked  at  her.  It  was  like  a  duel  be 
tween  two  strong  wills  of  an  old  race.  "You  sha'n't," 
she  said. 

"Yes,  I  shall,  grandma." 

Then  the  old  woman  turned  upon  her  in  a  fury  of  rage. 

"You're  a  Loud  all  over,  Ellen  Brewster,"  said  she. 
"You  'ain't  got  a  mite  of  Brewster  about  you.  You 
'ain't  got  any  pride!  You'd  just  as  so~n  settle  down 
and  work  in  a  shop  as  do  anything  else.'K 

Fanny  pushed  before  her.  "Look  -g(('  Mother 
Brewster,"  said  she,  "you  can  just  stop;  ^'her  'is  my 
daughter,  and  you  'ain't  any  right  to  ta  >t  »c*ier  this 
way.  I  won't  have  it.  If  anybody  is  goin'  to  blame 
her,  it's  me." 

"Who  be  you?"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes,  sniffing. 

Then  she  looked  at  them  both,  at  Ellen  and  at  her 
mother. 

"  If  you  go  an'  do  what  you've  planned,"  said  she 
to  Ellen,  'ran'  if  you  uphold  her  in  it,"  to  Fanny,  "I've 
done  with  you." 

"Good  riddance,"  said  Fanny,  coarsely. 

"I  ain't  goin'  to  forget  that  you  said  that,"  cried 
Mrs.  Zelotes.  She  held  up  her  dress  high  in  front 
and  went  out  of  the  door.  "  I  ain't  comin'  over  here 
again,  an'  I'll  thank  you  to  stay  at  home,"  said  she. 
Then  she  went  away. 

Soon  after  Fanny  heard  Ellen  in  the  dining-room 
netting  the  table  for  supper,  and  went  out. 

"  Where  did  you  get  that  money  you  paid  the  dress- 
with?"  she  asked,  abruptly. 
341 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  I  borrowed  it  of  Abby,"  replied  Ellen. 

"Then  she  knows?" 

"Yes." 

Fanny  continued  to  look  at  Ellen  with  the  look  of 
one  who  is  settling  down  with  resignation  under  some 
knife  of  agony. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "there's  no  need  to  talk  any  more 
about  it  before  your  father.  Now  I  guess  you  had 
better  toast  him  some  bread  for  his  supper." 

"Yes,  I  will,"  replied  Ellen.  She  looked  at  her 
mother  pitifully,  and  yet  with  that  firmness  which 
had  seemed  to  suddenly  develop  in  her.  "You  know 
it  is  the  best  thing  for  me  to  do,  mother?"  she  said,  and 
although  she  put  it  in  the  form  of  a  question,  the  state 
ment  was  commanding  in  its  assertiveness. 

"When  are  you — goin'  to  work?"  asked  Fanny. 

"Net  JM'/fonday,"  replied  Ellen. 
\  342 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

WHEN  Ellen  had  gone  to  the  factory  to  apply  for 
work  neither  of  the  Lloyds  were  in  the  office,  only  a 
girl  at  the  desk,  whom  she  knew  slightly.  Ellen  had 
hesitated  a  little  as  she  approached  the  girl,  who  looked 
around  with  a  friendly  smile. 

"I  want  to  see — "  Ellen  began,  then  she  stopped, 
for  she  did  not  exactly  know  for  whom  she  should  ask. 
The  girl,  who  was  blond  and  trim,  clad  coquettishly 
in  a  blue  shirt-waist  and  a  duck  skirt,  with  a  large, 
cheap  rhinestone  pin  confining  the  loop  of  her  yellow 
braids,  looked  at  her  in  some  bewilderment.  She  had 
heard  of  Ellen's  good-fortune,  and  knew  she  was  to  be 
sent  to  Vassar  by  Cynthia  Lennox.  She  did  not  dream 
that  she  had  come  to  ask  for  employment. 

"You  want  to  see  Mr.  Lloyd?"  she  asked. 

"Oh  no!"  replied  Ellen. 

"Mr.  Robert  Lloyd?"  The  girl,  whose  name  was 
Nellie  Stone,  laughed  a  little  meaningly  as  she  said 
that. 

Ellen  blushed.  "  No/'  she  said.  "  I  think  I  want  to 
see  the  foreman." 

"Which  foreman?" 

" I  don't  know,"  replied  Ellen.  "I  want  to  get  work 
if  I  can.  I  don't  know  which  foreman  I  ought  to  see." 

"To  get  work?"  repeated  the  girl,  with  a  subtle 
change  in  her  manner. 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen.  She  could  hear  her  heart  beat, 
but  she  looked  at  the  other  girl's  pretty,  common  face 
with  the  most  perfect  calmness. 

343 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Mr.  Flynn  is  the  one  you  want  to  see,  then/'  said 
the  girl.  "  You  know  Ed  Flynn,  don't  you?" 

"A  little,"  replied  Ellen.  He  had  been  a  big  boy 
when  she  entered  the  high -school,  and  had  left  the 
next  spring. 

"  Well,  he's  the  one  you  want,"  said  Nellie  Stone. 
Then  she  raised  her  voice  to  a  shrill  peal  as  a  boy 
passed  the  office  door. 

"Here,  you,  Jack,"  said  she,  "ask  Mr.  Flyiin  to 
come  here  a  minute,  will  you?" 

"He  don't  want  to  see  you,"  replied  the  boy,  who 
was  small  and  spare,  laden  heavily  with  a  great  roll 
of  wrapping  paper  borne  bayonet  fashion  over  his 
shoulder.  His  round,  impish  face  grinned  back  at  the 
girl  at  the  desk. 

"Quit  your  impudence,"  she  returned,  half  laughing 
herself.  "I  don't  want  to  see  him;  it  is  this  young 
lady  here;  hurry  up." 

The  boy  gave  a  comprehensive  glance  at  Ellen. 
"Guess  he'll  come,"  he  called  back. 

Flyiin  appeared  soon.  He  was  handsome,  well 
shaven  and  shorn,  and  he  held  himself  smartly.  Pie 
also  dressed  well  in  a  business  suit  which  would  not 
have  disgraced  the  Lloyds.  His  face  lit  up  with  as 
tonishment  and  pleasure  when  he  saw  Ellen.  He 
bowed  and  greeted  her  in  a  rich  voice.  He  was  of  Irish 
descent  but  American  born.  Both  his  motions  and 
his  speech  were  adorned  with  nourishes  of  grace  which 
betrayed  his  race.  He  placed  a  chair  for  Ellen  with  a 
sweep  which  would  have  been  a  credit  to  the  stage. 
All  his  actions  had  a  slight  exaggeration  as  of  fresco 
painting,  which  seemed  to  fit  them  for  a  stage  rather 
than  a  room,  and  for  an  audience  rather  than  chance 
spectators. 

"No,  thank  you,"  replied  Ellen.  Then  she  went 
straight  to  the  matter  in  hand.  "  I  have  called  to  see 

344 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

if  I  could  get  a  job  here?"  she  said.  She  had  been 
formulating  her  speech  all  the  way  thither.  Her  first 
impulse  was  to  ask  for  employment,  but  she  was  sure 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  a  girl  would  ordinarily  couch 
such  a  request.  So  she  asked  for  a  job. 

Flynn  stared  at  her.     "A  job?"  he  repeated. 

"Yes,  I  want  very  much  to  get  one,"  replied  Ellen. 
"I  thought  there  might  be  a  vacancy." 

"Why,  I  thought — "  said  the  young  man.  He  was 
very  much  astonished,  but  his  natural  polish  could 
rise  above  astonishment.  Instead  of  blurting  out  what 
was  in  his  mind  as  to  her  change  of  prospects,  he  rea 
soned  with  incredible  swiftness  that  the  change  must 
be  a  hard  thing  to  this  girl,  and  that  she  was  to  be 
handled  the  more  tenderly  and  delicately  because  she 
was  such  a  pretty  girl.  lie  became  twice  as  polite  as 
before.  He  moved  the  chair  nearer  to  her. 

"Please  sit  down/'  he  said.  He  handed  to  her  the 
wooden  arm-chair  as  if  it  had  been  a  throne.  Nellie 
Stone  bent  frowning  over  her  day-book. 

"Now  let  me  see,"  said  the  young  man,  seriously, 
with  perfect  deference  of  manner,  only  belied  by  the 
rollicking  admiration  in  his  eyes.  "You  have  never 
held  a  position  in  a  factory  before,  I  think?" 

"No,"  replied  Ellen. 

"  There  is  at  present  only  one  vacancy  that  I  can 
think  of,"  said  Flynn,  "and  that  does  not  pay  very 
much,  but  there  is  always  a  chance  to  rise  for  a  smart 
hand.  I  am  sure  you  will  be  that,"  he  added,  smiling 
at  her. 

Ellen  did  not  return  the  smile.  "  I  shall  be  content 
ed  to  begin  for  a  little,  if  there  is  a  chance  to  rise,"  she 
said. 

"  There's  a  chance  to  rise  to  eighteen  dollars  a  week," 
said  Flynn.  He  smiled  again,  but  it  was  like  smil 
ing  at  seriousness  itself.  Ellen's  downright,  searching 

345 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

eyes  upon  his  face  seemed  almost  to  forbid  the  fact  of 
her  own  girlish  identity. 

"What  is  the  job  you  have  for  me?"  said  she. 

"Tying  strings  in  shoes/'  answered  Flynn.  "Easy 
enough,  only  child's  play,  but  you  won't  earn  more  than 
three  dollars  a  week  to  begin  with." 

"I  shall  be  quite  satisfied  with  that,"  said  Ellen. 
"When  shall  I  come?" 

"Why,  to-morrow  morning;  no,  to-morrow  is  Friday. 
Better  come  next  Monday  and  begin  the  week.  That 
will  give  you  one  day  more  off,  and  the  hot  wave  a 
chance  to  get  past."  Flynn  spoke  facetiously.  It 
was  a  very  hot  day,  and  the  air  in  the  office  like  a  fur 
nace.  He  wiped  his  forehead,  to  which  the  dark  rings 
of  hair  clung.  The  girl  at  the  desk  glanced  around 
adoringly  at  him. 

"I  would  rather  not  stop  for  that  if  you  want  me  to 
begin  at  once/'  said  Ellen. 

Flynn  looked  abashed.  "Oh,  we'd  rather  have  you 
begin  on  the  even  week — it  makes  less  bother  over  the 
account/'  he  said.  "Monday  morning  at  seven  sharp, 
then." 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen. 

Flynn  walked  off  with  an  abrupt  duck  of  his  head. 
He  somehow  felt  that  he  had  been  rebuffed,  and  Ellen 
rose. 

"I  told  you  you'd  get  one,"  said  the  girl  at  the  desk. 
"  Catch  Ed  Flynn  not  giving  a  pretty  girl  a  job."  She 
said  it  with  an  accent  of  pain  as  well  as  malice.  Ellen 
looked  at  her  with  large,  indignant  eyes.  She  had  not 
the  least  idea  what  she  meant,  at  least  she  realized  only 
the  surface  meaning,  and  that  angered  her. 

"  I  suppose  he  gave  me  the  job  because  there  was  a 
vacancy,"  she  returned,  with  dignity. 

The  other  girl  laughed.     "Mebbe."  said  she. 

Ellen  continued  to  look  at  her,  and  there  was  some- 

346 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

tiling  in  her  look  not  only  indignant,  but  appealing. 
Nellie  Stone's  expression  changed  again.  She  laughed 
uneasily.  "Land,  I  didn't  mean  anything,"  said  she. 
"I'm  glad  for  you  that  you  got  the  job.  Of  course 
you  wouldn't  have  got  it  if  there  hadn't  been  a  chance. 
One  of  the  girls  got  married  last  week,  Maud  Millet. 
I  guess  it's  her  place  you've  got.  Fin  real  glad  you've 
got  it." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Ellen. 

"Good-bye,"  said  the  girl. 

"Good-bye,"  replied  Ellen. 

On  Monday  morning  the  heat  had  broken,  and  an 
east  wind  with  the  breath  of  the  sea  in  it  was  blowing. 
Ellen  started  for  her  work  at  half-past  six.  She  held 
her  father's  little,  worn  leather-bag,  in  which  he  had 
carried  his  dinner  lor  so  many  years.  The  walk  was 
so  long  that  it  would  scarcely  give  her  time  to  come  home 
at  noon,  and  as  for  taking  a  car,  that  was  not  to  be 
thought  of  for  a  moment  on  account  of  the  fare. 

Ellen  walked  along  briskly,  the  east  wind  blew  in 
her  face,  she  smelled  the  salt  sea,  and  somehow  it  at 
once  soothed  and  stimulated  her.  Without  seeing  the 
mighty  waste  of  waters,  she  seemed  to  realize  its  pres 
ence;  she  gazed  at  the  sky  hanging  low  with  a  scud 
of  gray  clouds,  which  did  not  look  unlike  the  ocean,  and 
the  sense  of  irresponsibility  in  the  midst  of  infinity 
comforted  her. 

"I  am  not  Ellen  Brewster  after  all,"  she  thought. 
"  I  am  not  anything  separate  enough  to  be  worried 
about  what  comes  to  me.  I  am  only  a  part  of  great 
ness  which  cannot  fail  of  reaching  its  end."  She 
thought  this  all  vaguely.  She  had  no  language  for  it, 
for  she  was  very  young ;  it  was  formless  as  music,  but 
as  true  to  her. 

When  she  reached  the  cross-street  where  the  Atkinses 
lived  Abby  and  Maria  came  running  out. 

347 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"My  land,  Ellen  Brewster,"  said  Abby,  half  angrily, 
"  if  you  don't  look  real  happy !  I  believe  you  are  glad 
to  go  to  work  in  a  shoe-shop!" 

Ellen  laughed.  Maria  said  nothing,  but  she  pressed 
close  to  her  as  she  walked  along.  She  was  coughing 
a  little  in  the  east  wind.  There  had  been  a  drop  of 
twenty  degrees  in  the  night,  and  these  drops  of  tem 
perature  in  New  England  mean  steps  to  the  tomb. 

"You  make  me  mad/'  said  Abby.  Her  voice  broke 
a  little.  She  dashed  her  hand  across  her  ej^es  angrily. 
"Here's  Granville  Joy,"  said  she;  "you'll  be  in  the 
same  room  with  him,  Ellen."  She  said  it  maliciously. 
Distress  over  her  friend  made  her  fairly  malicious. 

Ellen  colored.  "  You  are  hard  to  talk  to,"  said  she, 
in  a  low  voice,  for  Granville  was  coming  nearer,  gain 
ing  on  them  from  behind. 

"She  don't  mean  it,"  whispered  Maria. 

When  Granville  caught  up  with  them,  Ellen  pressed 
so  close  to  Maria  that  he  was  forced  to  walk  with  Abby 
or  pass  on.  She  returned  his  "Good-morning,"  then 
did  not  look  at  him  again.  Presently  Willy  Jones  ap 
peared,  coming  so  imperceptibly  that  he  seemed  almost 
impossible. 

"  Where  did  he  come  from?"  whispered  Ellen  to  Maria. 

"Hush,"  replied  Maria;  "it's  this  way  'most  every 
morning.  All  at  once  he  comes,  and  he  generally 
walks  with  me,  because  he's  afraid  Abby  won't  want 
him,  but  it's  Abby." 

This  morning,  Willy  Jones,  aroused,  perhaps,  to 
self-assertion  by  the  presence  of  another  man,  \valked 
three  abreast  with  Abby  and  Granville,  but  on  the  other 
side  of  Granville.  Now  and  then  he  peered  around 
the  other  man  at  the  girl,  with  soft,  wistful  blue  eyes, 
but  Abby  never  seemed  to  see  him.  She  talked  fast, 
in  a  harsh,  rather  loud  voice.  She  uttered  bitter  witti 
cisms  wrhich  made  her  companions  laugh. 

348 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Abby  is  so  bright/'  whispered  Maria  to  Ellen,  "but 
I  wish  she  wouldn't  talk  so.  Abby  doesn't  feel  the 
way  I  wish  she  did.  She  rebels.  She  would  be  hap 
pier  if  she  gave  up  rebelling  and  believed."  Maria 
coughed  as  she  spoke. 

"  You  had  better  keep  your  mouth  shut  in  this  east 
wind,  Maria,"  her  sister  called  out  sharply  to  her. 

"I'm  not  talking  much,  Abby,"  replied  Maria. 

Presently  Maria  looked  at  Ellen  lovingly.  "Do 
you  feel  very  badly  about  going  to  work?"  she  asked, 
in  a  low  voice. 

"No,  not  now.  I  have  made  up  my  mind,"  replied 
Ellen.  The  east  wind  was  bringing  a  splendid  color 
to  her  cheeks.  She  held  up  her  head  as  she  marched 
along,  like  one  leading  a  charge  of  battle.  Her  eyes 
gleamed  as  with  blue  fire,  her  yellow  hair  sprung  and 
curled  around  her  temples. 

They  were  now  in  the  midst  of  a  great,  hurrying  pro 
cession  bound  for  the  factories.  Some  of  the  men 
walked  silently,  with  a  dogged  stoop  of  shoulders  and 
shambling  hitch  of  hips;  some  of  the  women  moved 
droopingly,  with  an  indescribable  effect  of  hanging 
back  from  the  leading  of  some  imperious  hand  of  fate. 
Many  of  them,  both  men  and  women,  walked  alertly 
and  chattered  like  a  flock  of  sparrows.  Ellen  moved 
with  this  rank  and  file  of  the  army  of  labor,  and  all  at 
once  a  sense  of  comradeship  seized  her.  She  began 
to  feel  humanity  as  she  had  never  felt  it  before.  The 
sense  of  her  own  littleness  aroused  her  to  a  power  of 
comprehension  of  the  grandeur  of  the  mass  of  which 
she  was  a  part.  She  began  to  lose  herself  and  sense 
humanity. 

When  the  people  reached  the  factories,  two  on  one 
side  of  the  road,  one,  Lloyd's,  on  the  other,  they  began 
streaming  up  the  outside  stairs  and  disappearing  like 
swarms  of  bees  in  hives.  Two  flights  of  stairs,  one  on 

349 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

each  side,  led  to  a  platform  in  front  of  the  entrance  of 
Lloyd's. 

When  Ellen  set  her  foot  on  one  of  these  stairs  the 
seven-o'clock  steam-whistle  blew,  and  a  mighty  thrill 
shot  through  the  vast  building.  Ellen  caught  her 
breath.  Abby  came  close  to  her. 

"  Don't  get  scared,"  said  she,  with  ungracious  ten 
derness;  "there's  nothing  to  be  scared  at." 

Ellen  laughed.  "I'm  not  scared,"  said  she.  Then 
they  entered  the  factory,  humming  with  machinery, 
and  a  sensation  which  she  had  not  anticipated  was 
over  her.  Scared  she  was  not ;  she  was  fairly  exultant. 
All  at  once  she  entered  a  vast  room  in  which  eager 
men  were  already  at  the  machines  with  frantic  zeal, 
as  if  they  were  driving  labor  herself.  When  she  felt 
the  vibration  of  the  floor  under  her  feet,  when  she  saw 
people  spring  to  their  stations  of  toil,  as  if  springing 
to  guns  in  a  battle,  she  realized  the  might  and  grandeur 
of  it  all.  Suddenly  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  whole  world  was  work  and  that  this  was 
one  of  the  greatest  forms  of  work — to  cover  the  feet 
of  progress  of  the  travellers  of  the  earth  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  She  saw  that  these  great  factories,  and 
the  strength  of  this  army  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
toil,  made  possible  the  advance  of  civilization  itself, 
which  cannot  go  barefoot.  She  realized  all  at  once 
and  forever  the  dignity  of  labor,  this  girl  of  the  peo 
ple,  with  a  brain  which  enabled  her  to  overlook  the 
heads  of  the  rank  and  file  of  which  she  herself  formed 
a  part.  She  never  again,  whatever  her  regret  might 
have  been  for  another  life  for  which  she  was  better 
fitted,  which  her  taste  preferred,  had  any  sense  of 
ignominy  in  this.  She  never  again  felt  that  she 
was  too  good  for  her  labor,  for  labor  had  revealed  it 
self  to  her  like  a  goddess  behind  a  sordid  veil.  Abby 
and  Maria  looked  at  her  wonderingly.  No  other  girl 

350 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

had    ever  entered   Lloyd's  with   such  a  look   on  her 
face. 

"Are  you  sick?"  whispered  Abby,  catching  her 
arm. 

"No/'  said  Ellen.  "No,  don't  worry  me,  Abby.  I 
think  I  shall  like  it." 

"I  declare  you  make  me  mad,"  said  Abby,  but  she 
looked  at  her  adoringly.  "Here's  Ed  Flynn,"  she 
added.  "He'll  look  out  for  you.  Good-bye,  I'll  see 
you  at  noon."  Abby  went  away  to  her  machine.  She 
was  stitching  vamps  by  the  piece,  and  earning  a  con 
siderable  amount.  The  Atkinses  were  not  so  dis 
tressed  as  they  had  been,  and  Abby  was  paying  off  a 
mortgage. 

When  the  foreman  came  towards  Ellen  she  experi 
enced  a  shock.  His  gay,  admiring  eyes  on  her  face 
seemed  to  dispel  all  her  exaltation.  She  felt  as  if  her 
feet  touched  earth,  and  yet  the  young  man  was  entire 
ly  respectful,  and  even  thoughtful.  He  bade  her 
"Good-morning,"  and  conducted  her  to  the  scene  of 
her  labor.  One  other  girl  was  already  there  at  work. 
She  gave  a  sidewise  glance  at  Ellen,  and  went  on, 
making  her  fingers  fly.  Mr.  Flynn  showed  Ellen 
what  to  do.  She  had  to  tie  the  shoes  together  with 
bits  of  twine,  laced  through  e3^elet  holes.  Ellen  took 
a  piece  of  twine  and  tied  it  in  as  Flynn  watched  her. 
He  laughed  pleasantly. 

"You'll  do,"  he  said,  approvingly.  "I've  been  in 
here  five  years,  and  you  are  the  first  girl  I  ever  saw 
who  tied  a  square  knot  at  the  first  trial.  Here's  Mamie 
Brady  here,  she  worked  a  solid  month  before  she  got 
the  hang  of  the  square  knot." 

"You  go  along,"  admonished  the  girl  spoken  of  as 
"Mamie  Brady."  Her  words  were  flippant,  even  im 
pudent,  but  her  tone  was  both  dejected  and  childish. 
She  continued  to  work  without  a  glance  at  either  of 

35* 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

them.  Her  fingers  flew,  tying  the  knots  with  swift 
jerks. 

"Well,  you  help  Miss  Brewster,  if  she  needs  any 
help,"  said  Flynn,  as  he  went  away. 

"We  don't  have  any  misses  in  this  shop,"  said  the 
girl  to  Ellen,  with  sarcastic  emphasis. 

"I  don't  care  anything  about  being  called  miss," 
replied  Ellen,  picking  up  another  piece  of  string. 

"What's  your  first  name?" 

"Ellen." 

"Oh,  land!  1  know  who  you  be.  You  read  that 
essay  at  the  high-school  graduation.  I  was  there. 
Well,  I  shouldn't  think  you  would  want  to  be  called 
miss  if  you  feel  the  way  you  said  you  did  in  that." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  said  Ellen. 

The  girl  gave  a  swift,  comprehensive  glance  at  her 
as  her  fingers  manipulated  the  knots. 

"You  won't  earn  twenty  cents  a  week  at  the  rate 
you're  workin',"  she  said;  "look  at  me." 

"I  don't  believe  you  worked  any  faster  than  I  do 
when  you  hadn't  been  here  any  longer,"  retorted 
Ellen. 

"  I  did,  too ;  you  can't  depend  on  a  thing  Ed  Flynn 
says.  You're  awful  slow.  He  praises  you  because 
you  are  good-lookin'." 

Ellen  turned  and  faced  her.     "Look  here,"  said  she. 

The  other  girl  looked  at  her  with  unspeakable  im 
pudence,  and  yet  under  it  was  that  shadow  of  dejec 
tion  and  that  irresponsible  childishness. 

"Well,  I  am  lookin',"  said  she,  "what  is  it?" 

"  You  need  not  speak  to  me  again  in  that  way,"  said 
Ellen,  "and  I  want  you  to  understand  it.  I  will  not 
have  it." 

"My,  ain't  you  awful  smart,"  said  the  other  girl, 
sneeringly,  but  she  went  on  with  her  work  without 
another  word.  Presently  she  said  to  Ellen,  kindly 

352 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

enough :  "  If  you  lay  the  shoes  the  way  I  do,  so,  you 
can  get  them  faster.  You'll  find  it  pays.  Every  little 
saving  of  time  counts  when  you  are  workin'  by  the 
piece." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Ellen,  and  did  as  she  was  in 
structed.  She  began  to  work  with  exceeding  swiftness 
for  a  beginner.  Her  fingers  were  supple,  her  nervous 
energy  great.  Flynn  came  and  stood  beside  her, 
watching  her. 

"  If  you  work  at  that  rate,  you'll  make  it  pretty 
profitable,"  he  said. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Ellen. 

"And  a  square  knot  every  time,"  he  added,  with 
almost  a  caressing  inflection.  Mamie  Brady  tied  in 
the  twine  with  compressed  lips.  Granville  Joy  passed 
them,  pushing  a  rack  full  of  shoes  to  another  depart 
ment,  and  he  glanced  at  them  jealously.  Still  he  was 
not  seriously  alarmed  as  to  Flynn,  who,  although 
he  was  good-looking,  was  a  Catholic.  Mrs.  Zelotes 
seemed  an  effectual  barrier  to  that. 

"Ed  Flynn  talks  that  way  to  everybody,"  Mamie 
Brady  said  to  Ellen,  after  the  foreman  had  passed 
on.  She  said  it  this  time  quite  inoffensively.  Ellen 
laughed. 

"  If  I  do  tie  the  knots  square,  that  is  the  main  thing," 
she  said. 

"  Then  you  don't  like  him?" 

"I  never  spoke  two  words  to  him  before  the  day  I 
applied  for  work,"  Ellen  replied,  haughtily.  She 
was  beginning  to  feel  that  perhaps  the  worst  feat 
ure  of  her  going  to  work  in  a  factory  would  be  this 
girl. 

"  I've  known  girls  who  would  be  willing  to  go  down 
on  their  knees  and  tie  his  shoes  when  they  hadn't  seen 
more  of  him  than  that,"  said  the  girl.  "Ed  Flynn 
is  an  awful  masher." 

353 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  went  on  with  her  work.  The  girl,  after  a  side 
glance  at  her,  went  on  with  hers. 

Gradually  Ellen's  work  began  to  seem  mechanical. 
At  first  she  had  felt  as  if  she  were  tying  all  her  problems 
of  life  in  square  knots.  She  had  to  use  all  her  brain 
upon  it;  after  a  while  her  brain  had  so  informed  her 
fingers  that  they  had  learned  their  lesson  well  enough 
to  leave  her  free  to  think,  if  only  the  girl  at  her  side 
would  let  her  alone.  The  girl  had  a  certain  harsh 
beauty,  coarsely  curling  red  hair,  a  great  mass  of  it, 
gathered  in  an  untidy  knot,  and  a  brilliant  complexion. 
Her  hands  were  large  and  red.  Ellen's  contrasted 
with  them  looked  like  a  baby's. 

"You  'ain't  got  hands  for  workin'  in  a  shoe-shop," 
said  Mamie  Brady,  presently,  and  it  was  impossible 
to  tell  from  her  tone  whether  she  envied  or  admired 
Ellen's  hands,  or  was  proud  of  the  superior  strength  of 
her  own. 

"Well,  they've  got  to  work  in  a  shoe-shop,"  said 
Ellen,  with  a  short  laugh. 

"  You  won't  find  it  so  easy  to  work  with  such  little 
mites  of  hands  when  it  comes  to  some  things,"  said 
the  girl. 

It  began  to  be  clear  that  she  exulted  in  her  large, 
coarse  hands  as  being  fitted  for  her  work. 

"Maybe  mine  will  grow  larger,"  said  Ellen. 

"  No,  they  won't.  They'll  grow  all  bony  and  knotty, 
but  they  won't  grow  any  bigger." 

"Well,  I  shall  have  to  get  along  with  them  the  best 
way  I  can,"  replied  Ellen,  rather  impatiently.  This 
girl  was  irritating  to  a  degree,  and  yet  there  was  all 
the  time  that  vague  dejection  about  her,  and  withal 
a  certain  childishness,  which  seemed  to  insist  upon 
patience.  The  girl  was  really  older  than  Ellen,  but  she 
was  curiously  unformed.  Some  of  the  other  girls  said 
openly  that  she  was  "lacking." 

354 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  act  stuck  up.  Are  you  stuck  up?"  asked 
Mamie  Brady,  suddenly,  after  another  pause. 

Ellen  laughed  in  spite  of  herself.  "No,"  said  she, 
"  I  am  not.  I  know  of  no  reason  that  I  have  for  being 
stuck  up." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  of  any  either,"  said  the  other 
girl,  "  but  I  didn't  know.  You  sort  of  acted  as  if  you 
felt  stuck  up." 

"Well,  I  don't." 

"You  talk  stuck  up.  Why  don't  you  talk  the  way 
the  rest  of  us  do?  Why  do  you  say  'am  not/  and 
'ar'n't';  why  don't  you  say  'ain't'?" 

The  girl  mimicked  Ellen's  voice  impishly. 

Ellen  colored.  "  I  am  going  to  talk  the  way  I  think 
best,  the  way  I  have  been  taught  is  right,  and  if  that 
makes  you  think  I  am  stuck  up,  I  can't  help  it." 

"My,  don't  get  mad.  I  didn't  mean  anything," 
said  the  other  girl. 

All  trn  time  while  Ellen  was  working,  and  even 
while  the  exultation  and  enthusiasm  of  her  first  charge 
in  the  battle  of  labor  was  upon  her,  she  had  had,  since 
her  feminine  instincts  were,  after  all,  strong  with  her, 
a  sense  that  Robert  Lloyd  was  under  the  same  great 
factory  roof,  in  the  same  human  hive,  that  he  might 
at  any  moment  pass  through  the  room.  That,  how 
ever,  she  did  not  think  very  likely.  She  fancied  the 
Lloyds  seldom  went  through  the  departments,  which 
were  in  charge  of  foremen.  Mr.  Norman  Lloyd  was 
at  the  mountains  with  his  wife,  she  knew.  They  left 
Robert  in  charge,  and  he  would  have  enough  to  do  in 
the  office.  She  looked  at  the  grimy  men  working  around 
her,  and  she  thought  of  the  elegant  young  fellow,  and 
the  utter  incongruity  of  her  being  among  them  seemed 
so  great  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  it.  She  had 
said  to  herself  when  she  thought  of  obtaining  work  in 
Lloyd's  that  she  need  not  hesitate  about  it  on  account 

355 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  Robert.  She  had  heard  her  father  say  that  the  elder 
Lloyd  almost  never  came  in  contact  with  the  men,  that 
everything  was  done  through  the  foremen.  She  rea 
soned  that  it  would  be  the  same  with  the  younger  Lloyd. 
But  all  at  once  the  girl  at  her  side  gave  her  a  violent 
nudge,  which  did  not  interrupt  for  a  second  her  own 
flying  fingers. 

"Say,"  she  said,  "ain't  he  handsome?" 

Ellen  glanced  over  her  shoulder  and  saw  Robert. 
Lloyd  coining  down  between  the  lines  of  workmen. 
Then  she  turned  to  her  work,  and  her  fingers  slipped 
and  bungled,  her  ears  rang.  He  passed  without  speak 
ing. 

Mamie  Brady  openly  stared  after  him.  "He's  aw 
ful  handsome,  and  an  awful  swell,  but  he's  awful 
stuck  up,  just  like  the  old  boss,"  said  she.  "  He  never 
notices  any  of  us,  and  acts  as  if  he  was  afraid  we'd 
poison  him.  My,  what's  the  matter  with  you?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Ellen. 

"You  look  white  as  a  sheet;  ain't  you  well?" 

Ellen  turned  upon  her  with  sudden  fury.  She  had 
something  of  the  blood  of  the  violent  Louds  and  of 
her  hot-tempered  grandmother.  She  had  stood  every 
thing  from  this  petty,  insistent  tormentor. 

"Yes,  I  am  well,"  she  replied,  "and  I  will  thank  you 
to  let  me  alone,  and  let  me  do  my  work,  and  do  your 
own." 

The  other  girl  stared  at  her  a  minute  with  curiously 
expressive,  uplifted  eyebrows. 

"Whew!"  she  said,  in  a  half  whistle  then,  and  went 
on  with  her  work,  and  did  not  speak  again. 

Ellen  was  thankful  that  Robert  Lloyd  had  not  spoken 
to  her  in  the  factory,  and  yet  she  was  cut  to  the  quick 
by  it.  It  fulfilled  her  anticipations  to  the  letter.  "I 
was  right,"  she  said  to  herself;  "he  can  never  think 
of  me  again.  He  is  showing  it."  Somehow,  after 

356 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

he  had  passed,  her  enthusiasm,  born  of  a  strong  imagi 
nation,  and  her  breadth  of  nature  failed  her  somewhat. 
The  individual  began  to  press  too  closely  upon  the 
aggregate.  Suddenly  Ellen  Brewster  and  her  own 
heartache  and  longing  came  to  the  front.  She  had  put 
herself  out  of  his  life  as  completely  as  if  she  had  gone  to 
another  planet.  Still,  feeling  this,  she  realized  no  degra 
dation  of  herself  as  a  cause  of  it.  She  realized  that 
from  his  point  of  view  she  had  gone  into  a  valley,  but 
from  hers  she  was  rather  on  an  opposite  height.  She 
on  the  height  of  labor,  of  skilled  handiwork,  which  is 
the  manifestation  in  action  of  brain-work,  he  on  the 
height  of  pure  brain-work  unpressed  by  physical  action. 

At  noon,  when  she  was  eating  her  dinner  with  Abby 
and  Maria,  Abby  turned  to  her  and  inquired  if  young 
Mr.  Lloyd  had  spoken  to  her  when  he  came  through 
the  room. 

"No,  he  didn't,"  replied  Ellen. 

Abby  said  nothing,  but  she  compressed  her  lips  and 
gave  her  head  a  hard  jerk.  A  girl  who  ran  a  machine 
next  to  Abby's  came  up,  munching  a  large  piece  of 
pie,  taking  clean  semicircular  bites  with  her  large,  white 
teeth. 

"Say,"  she  said,  "did  you  see  the  young  boss's  new 
suit?  Got  up  fine,  wasn't  he?" 

"  I'd  like  to  see  him  working  where  I  be  for  an  hour," 
said  a  young  fellow,  strolling  up,  dipping  into  his  din 
ner-bag.  He  was  black  and  greasy  as  to  face  and  hands 
and  clothing.  "Guess  his  light  pants  and  vest  would 
look  rather  different,"  said  he,  and  everybody  laughed 
except  the  Atkins  girls  and  Ellen. 

"  I  guess  he  washed  his  hands,  anyway,  before  he  ate 
his  dinner,"  said  Abby,  sharply,  looking  at  the  young 
man's  hands  with  meaning. 

The  young  fellow  colored,  though  he  laughed. 
"  There  ain't  a  knife  in  this  shop  so  sharp  as  some 

357 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

women's  tongues/'  said  he.  "  I  pity  the  man  that 
gets  you." 

"There  won't  any  man  get  me,"  retorted  Abby. 
"I've  seen  all  I  want  to  see  of  men,  working  with  'em 
ever}?"  day." 

"Mebbe  they  have  of  you,"  called  back  the  young 
fellow,  going  away. 

"The  saucy  thing!"  said  the  girl  who  stitched  next 
to  Abby. 

"  There  isn't  any  excuse  for  a  man's  eating  his  dinner 
with  hands  like  that,"  said  Abby.  "  It's  worse  to  poison 
yourself  with  your  own  dirt  than  with  other  folks'. 
It  hurts  your  own  self  more." 

"He  ain't  worth  minding,"  said  the  girl. 

"Do  you  suppose  I  do  mind  him?"  returned  Abby. 
Maria  looked  at  her  meaningly.  The  young  man, 
whose  name  was  Edison  Bartlett,  had  once  tried  to 
court  Abby,  but  neither  she  nor  Maria  had  ever  told  of  it. 

"His  clothes  were  a  pearl  gray,"  said  the  girl  at 
the  stitching-machine,  reverting  to  the  original  subject. 

"Good  gracious,  who  cares  what  color  they  were?" 
cried  Abby,  impatiently. 

"He  looked  awful  handsome  in  'em,"  said  the  girl. 
"He's  awful  handsome." 

"  You'd  better  look  at  handsome  fellows  in  your  own 
set,  Sadie  Peel,"  said  Abby,  roughly. 

The  girl,  who  was  extremely  pretty,  carried  herself 
well,  and  dressed  with  cheap  fastidiousness,  colored. 

"I  don't  see  what  we  have  to  think  about  sets  for," 
said  she.  "  I  guess  way  back  the  Peels  were  as  good 
as  the  Lloyds.  We're  in  a  free  country,  where  one 
is  as  good  as  another,  ain't  we?" 

"  No  one  is  as  good  as  another,  except  in  the  sight  of 
the  Lord,  in  any  country  on  the  face  of  this  earth,"  said 
Abby. 

"If  you  are  as  good  in  your  own  sight,  I  don't  see 
358 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

that  it  makes  much  difference  about  the  sight  of  other 
human  beings/'  said  Ellen.  "I  guess  that's  what 
makes  a  republic,  anyway." 

Sadie  Peel  gave  a  long,  bewildered  look  at  her,  then 
she  turned  to  Abby. 

"Do  you  know  where  I  can  get  somebody  to  do  ac 
cordion-plaiting  for  me?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  said  Abby.  "I  never  expect  to  get  to  the 
height  of  accordion-plaiting." 

"I  know  where  you  can,"  .said  another  girl,  coming 
up.  She  had  light  hair,  falling  in  a  harsh,  uncurled 
bristle  over  her  forehead ;  her  black  gown  was  smeared 
with  paste,  and  even  her  face  and  hands  were  stick}1- 
with  it. 

"  There's  a  great  splash  of  paste  on  your  nose,  Hattie 
Wright,"  said  Abby. 

The  girl  took  out  a  crumpled  handkerchief  and  began 
rubbing  her  nose  absently  while  she  went  on  talking 
about  the  accordion-plaiting. 

"There's  a  woman  on  Joy  Street  does  it,"  said  she. 
"  She  lives  just  opposite  the  school-house,  and  she  does 
it  awful  cheap,  only  three  cents  a  yard."  She  thrust 
the  handkerchief  into  her  pocket. 

"You  haven't  got  it  half  off,"  said  Abby. 

"Let  it  stay  there,  then,"  said  the  girl,  indifferently. 
"If  you  work  pasting  linings  in  a  shoe- shop  you've 
got  to  get  pasted  yourself." 

Ellen  looked  at  the  girl  with  a  curious  reflection  that 
she  spoke  the  truth,  that  she  really  was  pasted  herself, 
that  the  soil  and  the  grind  of  her  labor  were  wearing 
on  her  soul.  She  had  seen  this  girl  out  of  the  shop — 
in  fact,  only  the  day  before — and  no  one  would  have 
known  her  for  the  same  person.  When  her  light  hair 
was  curled,  and  she  was  prettily  dressed,  she  was  quite 
a  beauty.  In  the  shop  she  was  a  slattern,  and  seemed 
to  go  down  under  the  wheels  of  her  toil. 

359 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"On  Joy  Street,  you  said?"  said  Sadie  Peel. 

"Yes.  Right  opposite  the  school-house.  Her  name 
is  Brackett." 

Then  the  one-o'clock  whistle  blew,  and  everybody, 
Ellen  with  the  rest,  went  back  to  their  stations.  Robert 
Lloyd  did  not  come  into  the  room  again  that  afternoon. 
Ellen  worked  on  steadily,  and  gained  swiftness.  Every 
now  and  then  the  foreman  came  and  spoke  encourag 
ingly  to  her. 

"Look  out,  Mamie,"  he  said  to  the  girl  at  her  side, 
"or  she'll  get  ahead  of  you." 

"I  don't  want  to  get  ahead  of  her,"  said  Ellen,  un 
expectedly. 

Flynn  laughed.  "  If  you  don't,  you  ain't  much  like 
the  other  girls  in  this  shop,"  said  he,  passing  on  with 
his  urbane,  slightly  important  swing  of  shoulders. 

"Did  you  mean  that?"  asked  Mamie  Brady. 

"Yes,  I  did.  It  seems  to  me  you  work  fast  enough 
for  any  girl.  A  girl  isn't  a  machine." 

"You're  a  queer  thing,"  said  Mamie  Brady.  "If 
I  were  you,  I  would  just  as  soon  get  ahead  as  not, 
especially  if  Ed  Flynn  was  goin'  to  come  and  praise 
me  for  it." 

Ellen  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  tied  another  knot. 

"You're  a  queer  thing,"  said  Mamie  Brady,  while 
her  fingers  flew  like  live  wires. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THAT  night,  when  Ellen  went  down  the  street  tow 
ards  home  with  the  stream  of  factory  operatives,  she 
computed  that  she  must  have  earned  about  fifty  cents, 
perhaps  not  quite  that.  She  was  horribly  tired.  Al 
though  the  work  in  itself  was  not  laborious,  she  had 
been  all  day  under  a  severe  nervous  tension. 

"  You  look  tired  to  death,  Ellen  Brewster,"  Abby  said, 
in  a  half-resentful,  half-compassionate  tone.  "  You  can 
never  stand  this  in  the  world." 

"  I  am  no  more  tired  than  any  one  would  be  the 
first  day,"  Ellen  returned,  stoutly,  "and  I'm  going 
to  stand  it." 

"  You  act  to  me  as  if  you  liked  it,"  said  Abby,  with 
an  angry  switch  like  a  cat. 

"1  do,"  Ellen  returned,  almost  as  angrily.  Then 
she  turned  to  Abby.  "  Look  here,  Abby  Atkins, 
why  can't  you  treat  me  half  -  way  decent?"  said 
she.  "You  know  I've  got  to  do  it,  and  I'm  mak 
ing  the  best  of  it.  If  anybody  else  treated  me  the 
way  you  are  doing,  I  don't  know  what  you  would 
do." 

"I  would  kill  them,"  said  Abby,  fiercely;  "but  it's 
different  with  me.  I'm  mad  to  have  you  go  to  work 
in  the  shop,  and  act  as  if  you  liked  it,  because  I 
think  so  much  of  you."  Abby  and  Ellen  were 
walking  side  by  side,  and  Maria  followed  with  Sadie 
Peel. 

"Well,  I  can't  help  it  if  you  are  mad  at  me,"  said 
Ellen.  "I've  had  everything  to  contend  against,  my 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

father  and  mother,  and  my  grandmother  won't  even 
speak  to  me,  and  now  if  you — "     Ellen's  voice  broke. 

Abby  caught  her  arm  in  a  hard  grip. 

"I  ain't/'  said  she;  "you  can  depend  on  me.  You 
know  you  can,  in  spite  of  everything.  You  know  why 
I  talk  so.  If  you've  set  your  heart  on  doing  it,  I  won't 
say  another  word.  I'll  do  all  I  can  to  help  you,  and 
I'd  like  to  hear  anybody  say  a  word  against  you  for 
going  to  work  in  the  shop,  that's  all." 

Ellen  and  Abby  almost  never  kissed  each  other; 
Abby  was  not  given  to  endearments  of  that  kind.  Maria 
was  more  profuse  with  her  caresses.  That  night  when 
they  reached  the  corner  of  the  cross  street  where  the 
Atkinses  lived,  Maria  went  close  to  Ellen  and  put  up 
her  face. 

"Good-night,"  said  she.  Then  she  withdrew  her  lips 
suddenly,  before  Ellen  could  touch  them. 

"I  forgot,"  said  she.  "You  mustn't  kiss  me.  I 
forgot  my  cough.  They  say  it's  catching." 

Ellen  caught  hold  of  her  little,  thin  shoulders,  held 
her  firmly,  and  kissed  her  full  on  her  lips. 

"Good-night,"  said  she. 

"  Good-night,  Ellen,"  called  Abby,  and  her  sharp  voice 
rang  as  sweet  as  a  bird's. 

When  Ellen  came  in  sight  of  her  grandmother's  house, 
she  saw  a  window-shade  go  down  with  a  jerk,  and  knew 
that  Mrs.  Zelotes  had  been  watching  for  her,  and  was 
determined  not  to  let  her  know  it.  Mrs.  Pointdexter 
came  out  of  her  grand  house  as  Ellen  passed,  and  took 
up  her  station  on  the  corner  to  wait  for  a  car.  She 
bowed  to  Ellen  with  an  evasive,  little,  sidewise  bow.  Her 
natural  amiability  prompted  her  to  shake  hands  with 
her,  call  her  "my  dear,"  and  inquire  how  she  had 
got  on  during  her  first  day  in  the  factory,  but  she 
was  afraid  of  her  friend,  whose  eye  she  felt  upon  her 
around  the  edge  of  the  drawn  curtain. 

362 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

It  was  unusually  dark  that  night  for  early  fall,  and  the 
rain  came  down  in  a  steady  drizzle,  as  it  had  come  all 
day,  and  the  wind  blew  from  the  ocean  on  the  east. 
The  lamp  was  lighted  in  the  kitchen  when  Ellen  turned 
into  her  own  door-yard,  and  home  had  never  looked  so 
pleasant  and  desirable  to  her.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  she  knew  what  it  was  to  come  home  for  rest  and 
shelter  after  a  day  of  toil,  and  she  seemed  to  sense  the 
full  meaning  of  home  as  a  refuge  for  weary  labor. 

When  she  opened  the  door,  she  smelled  at  once  a 
particular  kind  of  stew  of  which  she  was  very  fond, 
and  knew  that  her  mother  had  been  making  it  for  her 
supper.  There  was  a  rush  of  warm  air  from  the  kitchen 
which  felt  grateful  after  the  damp  chill  outside. 

Ellen  went  into  the  kitchen,  and  her  mother  stood 
there  over  the  stove,  stirring  the  stew.  She  looked  up 
at  the  girl  with  an  expression  of  intense  motherliness 
which  was  beyond  a  smile. 

"Well,  so  you've  got  home?"  she  said. 

"Yes." 

"How  did  you  get  along?" 

"All  right.  It  isn't  hard  work.  Not  a  bit  hard, 
mother." 

"Ain't  you  tired?" 

"  Oh,  a  little.  But  no  more  than  anybody  would  be 
at  first.  I  don't  look  very  tired,  do  I?"  Ellen  laughed. 

"  No,  you  don't,"  said  Fanny,  looking  at  her  cheeks, 
reddened  with  the  damp  wind.  The  mother's  look  was 
admiring  and  piteous  and  brave.  No  one  knew  how 
the  woman  had  suffered  that  day,  but  she  had  kept 
her  head  and  heart  above  it.  The  stew  for  Ellen's 
supper  was  a  proof  of  that. 

"Where's  father?"  asked  Ellen,  taking  off  her  hat 
and  cape,  and  going  to  the  sink  to  wash  her  face  and 
hands.  Fanny  saw  her  do  that  with  a  qualm.  Ellen 
had  always  used  a  dainty  little  set  in  her  own  room. 

363 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

Now  she  was  doing  exactly  as  her  father  had  always 
done  on  his  return  from  the  shop — washing  off  the  stains 
of  leather  at  the  kitchen  sink.  She  felt  instinctively 
that  Ellen  did  it  purposely,  that  she  was  striving  to 
bring  herself  into  accord  with  her  new  life  in  all  the 
details. 

Little  Amabel  came  running  out  of  the  dining-room, 
and  threw  her  arms  around  Ellen's  knees  as  she  was 
bending  over  the  sink.  "I've  set  the  tablet"  she  cried. 

'"  Look  out  or  you'll  get  all  splashed,"  laughed  Ellen. 

"And  I  dusted,"  said  Amabel. 

"  She's  been  as  good  as  a  kitten  all  day,  and  a  sight 
of  help,"  said  Fanny. 

"She's  a  good  girl,"  said  Ellen.  "Cousin  Ellen  will 
kiss  her  as  soon  as  she  gets  her  face  washed/' 

She  caught  hold  of  a  fold  of  the  roller  towel,  and 
turned  her  beautiful,  dripping  face  to  her  mother  as 
she  did  so. 

"That  stew  does  smell  so  good,"  said  she.  "Where 
did  you  say  father  was?" 

"I  thought  we'd  just  have  some  bread  and  milk  for 
dinner,  and  somethin'  hearty  to-night,  when  you  came 
home,"  said  Fanny.  "I  thought  maybe  a  stew  would 
taste  good." 

"I  guess  it  will,"  said  Ellen,  stooping  down  to  kiss 
Amabel.  "Where  did  you  say  father  was?" 

"Uncle  Andrew  has  been  lyin'  down  all  day  most," 
whispered  Amabel. 

"Isn't  he  well?"  Ellen  asked  her  mother,  in  quick 
alarm. 

"Oh  yes,  he's  well  enough."  Fanny  moved  close 
to  the  girl  with  a  motion  of  secrecy.  "  If  I  were  you  I 
wouldn't  say  one  word  about  the  shop,  nor  what  you 
did,  before  father  to-night;  let  him  kind  of  get  used  to 
it.  Amabel  mustn't  talk  about  it,  either." 

"I  won't,"  said  Amabel,  with  a  wise  air. 

364 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  You  know  father  had  set  his  heart  on  somethin' 
pretty  different  for  you,"  said  Fanny. 

Fanny  hushed  her  voice  as  Andrew  came  out  of  the 
dining-room,  staggering  a  little  as  if  the  light  blinded 
him.  His  nervous  strength  of  the  morning  had  passed 
and  left  him  exhausted.  He  moved  and  stood  with  a 
downward  lope  of  every  muscle,  expressing  unutter 
able  patience,  which  had  passed  beyond  rebellion  and 
questioning. 

He  stood  before  Ellen  like  some  old,  spent  horse.  He 
was  expecting  to  hear  something  about  the  shop — ex 
pecting,  as  it  were,  a  touch  on  a  sore,  and  he  waited  for 
it  meekly. 

Ellen  turned  her  lovely,  glowing  face  towards  him. 

"Father,"  she  said,  as  if  nothing  out  of  the  com 
mon  had  happened,  "are  you  going  down -town  to 
night?" 

Andrew  brightened  a  little.  "  I  can  if  you  want  any 
thing,  Ellen,"  he  said. 

"  Well,  I  don't  want  you  to  go  on  purpose,  but  I  do 
want  a  book  from  the  library." 

"I'd  just  as  soon  go  as  not,  Ellen,"  said  Andrew. 

"  It'll  do  him  good,"  whispered  Fanny,  as  she  passed 
Ellen,  carrying  the  dish  of  stew  to  the  dining-room. 

"Well,  then,  I'll  give  you  my  card  after  supper," 
said  Ellen.  "Supper  is  ready  now,  isn't  it,  mother? 
I'm  as  hungry  as  a  bear." 

Andrew,  when  he  was  seated  at  the  table  and  was 
ladling  out  the  stew,  had  still  that  air  of  hopeless  and 
defenceless  apology  towards  life,  but  he  held  his  head 
higher,  and  his  frown  of  patient  gloom  had  relaxed. 

Then  Ellen  said  something  else.  "Maybe  I  can 
write  a  book  some  time,"  said  she. 

A  sudden  flash  illumined  Andrew's  face.  It  was 
like  the  visible  awakening  of  hope  and  ambition. 

"I  don't  see  why  you  can't,"  he  said,  eagerly. 
365 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Maybe  she  can,"  said  Fanny.  "Give  her  some 
more  of  the  potatoes,  Andrew." 

"  Til  have  plenty  of  time  after — evenings/'  said  El 
len. 

"I  guess  lots  of  folks  write  books  that  sell,  and  sell 
well,  that  don't  have  any  more  talent  than  you,"  said 
Andrew.  "Only  think  how  they  praised  your  vale 
dictory." 

"  Well,  it  can't  do  any  harm  to  try,"  said  Ellen,  "  and 
you  could  copy  it  for  me,  couldn't  you,  father?  Your 
writing  is  so  fine,  it  would  be  as  good  as  a  typewriter." 

"Of  course  I  can,"  said  Andrew. 

When  Andrew  went  down  to  the  library,  passing 
along  the  drenched  streets,  seeing  the  lamps  through 
shifting  veils  of  heavy  mist,  he  was  as  full  of  enthusi 
asm  over  Ellen's  book  as  he  had  been  over  the  gold 
mine.  The  heart  of  a  man  is  always  ready  to  admit 
a  ray  of  sunshine,  and  it  takes  only  a  small  one  to  dis 
pel  the  shadows  when  love  dwells  therein. 

366 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

ELLEN  actually  went  to  work,  with  sheets  of  fools 
cap  and  a  new  bottle  of  ink,  on  a  novel,  which  was  not 
worth  the  writing ;  but  no  one  could  estimate  the  com 
fort  and  encouragement  it  was  to  Andrew.  Ellen  work 
ed  an  hour  or  two  every  evening  on  the  novel,  and  next 
day  Andrew  copied  it  in  a  hand  like  copperplate — large, 
with  ornate  flourishes.  Andrew's  handwriting  had 
always  been  greatly  admired,  and,  strangely  enough, 
it  was  not  in  the  least  indicative  of  his  character,  being 
wholly  acquired.  He  had  probably  some  ability  for 
drawing,  but  this  had  been  his  only  outlet. 

At  the  head  of  every  chapter  of  Ellen's  novel  were 
birds  and  flowers  done  in  colored  inks,  and  every  chap 
ter  had  a  tail-piece  of  elegant  quirls  and  flourishes. 
Fanny  admired  it  intensely.  She  was  not  quite  so 
sure  of  Ellen's  work  as  she  was  of  her  husband's.  She 
felt  herself  a  judge  of  one,  but  not  of  the  other. 

"  If  Ellen  could  only  write  as  well  as  you  copy,  it  will 
do,"  she  often  said  to  Andrew. 

"What  she  is  writing  is  beautiful,"  said  Andrew, 
fervently.  He  was  quite  sure  in  his  own  mind  that 
such  a  book  had  never  been  written,  and  his  pride  in 
his  decorations  was  a  minor  one. 

Ellen,  although  she  was  not  versed  in  the  ways  of 
books,  yet  had  enough  of  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
and  of  the  ridiculous,  to  know  that  the  manuscript, 
with  its  impossible  pen-and-ink  birds  and  flowers  head 
ing  and  finishing  every  chapter,  was  grotesque  in  the 
extreme.  She  felt  divided  between  a  desire  to  laugh 

367 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

and  a  desire  to  cry  whenever  she  looked  at  it.  About 
her  own  work  she  felt  more  than  doubtful ;  still,  she 
was  somewhat  hopeful,  since  her  taste  and  judgment, 
as  well  as  her  style,  were  alike  crude.  She  told  Abby 
and  Maria  what  she  was  doing,  under  promise  of  strict 
secrecy,  and  after  a  while  read  them  a  few  chapters. 

"It's  beautiful,"  said  Maria — "perfectly  beautiful. 
I  had  a  Sunday-school  book  this  week  which  I  know 
wasn't  half  as  good." 

Ellen  looked  at  Abby,  who  was  silent.  The  three 
girls  were  up  in  Ellen's  room.  It  was  midwinter,  some 
months  after  she  had  gone  to  work  in  the  shop,  and 
vshe  had  a  fire  in  her  little,  air-tight  stove. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  it,  Abby?"  asked  Ellen. 
Ellen's  cheeks  were  flushed  as  if  with  fever.  She  looked 
eagerly  at  the  other  girl. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  the  truth?"  asked  Abbj^, 
bluntly. 

"Yes,  of  course  I  do." 

"  Well,  then,  I  don't  know  a  thing  about  books,  and 
I'd  knock  anybody  else  down  that  said  it,  but  it  seems 
to  me  it's  trash." 

"Oh,  Abby,"  murmured  Maria. 

"Never  mind,"  said  Ellen,  though  she  quivered  a 
little,  " I  want  to  know  just  how  it  looks  to  her." 

"  It  looks  to  me  just  like  that,"  said  Abby — "  like  trash. 
It  sounds  as  if,  when  you  began  to  write  it,  you  had 
mounted  upon  stilts,  and  didn't  see  things  and  people 
the  way  they  really  were.  It  ain't  natural." 

"Do  you  think  I  had  better  give  it  up,  then?"  asked 
Ellen.  ' 

"No,  I  don't,  on  account  of  your  father." 

"I  believe  it  would  about  break  father's  heart,"  said 
Ellen. 

"I  don't  know  but  it's  worth  as  much  to  write  a 
book  for  your  father,  to  please  him,  and  keep  his 

368 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

spirits  up,  as  it  is  to  write  one  for  the  whole  world/' 
vsaid  Abby. 

"Only,  of  course,  she  can't  get  any  money  for  it," 
said  Maria.  "But  I  don't  believe  Abby  is  right,  and 
don't  you  get  discouraged,  Ellen.  It  sounds  beautiful 
to  me."" 

"Well,  I  suppose  it  is  worth  keeping  on  with  for 
father'^  sake,"  said  Ellen;  but  she  had  a  discouraged 
air.  She  never  again  wrote  with  any  hope  or  heart; 
she  had  faith  in  Abby's  opinion,  for  she  knew  that  she 
was  always  predisposed  to  admiration  in  her  case. 

Ellen  at  that  time  was  earning  more,  for  she  had 
advanced,  and  had  long  ago  left  her  station  beside 
Mamie  Brady ;  and  now  in  a  month  or  two  she  would 
have  a  machine.  The  girls,  many  of  them,  said  openly 
that  her  rapid  promotion  was  due  to  favoritism,  and 
that  Ed  Flynn  wouldn't  do  as  much  for  anybody  but 
Ellen  Brewster.  Flynn  hung  about  her  in  the  shop  a 
good  deal,  but  he  had  made  no  efforts  to  pay  her  decided 
attention.  His  religion  was  the  prime  factor  for  his 
hesitation.  He  could  not  see  his  way  clear  towards  open 
addresses  with  a  view  to  marriage.  Still,  he  had  a  sharp 
eye  for  other  admirers,  and  Ellen  had  not  been  in  the 
factory  two  months  before  Granville  Joy  was  sent  into 
another  room.  Robert  Lloyd,  to  whom  the  foreman 
appealed  for  confirmation  of  the  plan,  coincided  with 
readiness. 

"  That  fellow  ain't  strong  enough  to  run  that  machine 
he's  doing  now,"  said  Flynn. 

"Then  put  him  on  another,"  Robert  said,  coloring. 
It  was  not  quite  like  setting  his  rival  in  the  front  of 
the  battle;  still,  he  felt  ashamed  of  himself.  Quicker 
than  lightning  it  had  flashed  through  his  mind  that 
young  Joy  could  thus  be  sent  into  a  separate  room 
from  Ellen  Brewster. 

"  I  think  he  had  better  take  one  of  the  heel-shaving 

369 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

machines  below/'  said  Flynn,  "and  let  that  big  Swede, 
that's  as  strong  as  an  ox,  and  never  jumped  at  any 
thing  in  his  life,  take  his  place  here." 

"All  right,"  said  Lloyd,  assuming  a  nonchalant  air. 
"Make  the  change  if  you  think  it  advisable,  Flynn." 

While  such  benevolence  towards  a  possible  rival  had 
its  suspicious  points,  yet  there  was,  after  all,  some 
reason  for  it.  Granville  Joy,  who  was  delicately  or 
ganized  as  to  his  nerves,  was  running  a  machine  for 
cutting  linings,  and  this  came  down  with  sharp  thuds 
which  shook  the  factory,  and  it  was  fairly  torture  to 
him.  Every  time  the  knife  fell  he  cringed  as  if  at  a 
cannon  report.  He  had  never  grown  accustomed  to 
it.  His  face  had  acquired  a  fixed  expression  of  being 
screwed  to  meet  a  shock  of  sound.  He  was  man 
ifestly  unfit  for  his  job,  but  he  received  the  order  to 
leave  with  dismay. 

"Hasn't  my  work  been  satisfactory?"  he  asked 
Flynn. 

"  Satisfactory  enough,"  replied  the  foreman,  genially, 
"  but  it's  too  hard  for  you,  man." 

"I  'ain't  complained,"  said  Joy,  with  a  flash  of  his 
eyes.  He  thought  he  knew  why  this  solicitude  was 
shown  him. 

"I  know  you  'ain't,"  said  Flynn,  "but  you  'ain't 
got  the  muscle  and  nerve  for  it.  That's  plain  enough 
to  see." 

"I  'ain't  complained,  and  I'd  rather  stay  where  I 
be,"  said  Joy,  angrily. 

"  You'll  go  where  you  are  sent  in  this  factory,  or  be 
damned,"  cried  Flynn,  walking  off. 

Joy  looked  after  him  with  an  expression  which  trans 
formed  his  face.  But  the  next  morning  the  stolid 
Swede,  who  would  not  have  started  at  a  bomb,  was 
at  his  place,  and  he  was  below,  where  he  could  not 
see  Ellen. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Robert  never  spoke  to  Ellen  in  the  factory,  and  had 
never  called  upon  her  since  she  entered.  Now  and  then 
he  met  her  on  the  street  and  raised  his  hat,  that  was  all. 
Still,  he  began  to  wonder  more  and  more  if  his  aunt 
had  not  been  mistaken  in  her  view  of  the  girl's  motive 
for  giving  up  college  and  going  to  work.  Then,  later 
on,  he  learned  from  Lyman  Risley  that  a  small  mort 
gage  had  been  put  on  the  Brewster  house  some  time 
before.  In  fact,  Andrew,  not  knowing  to  whom  to 
go,  and  remembering  his  kindness  when  Ellen  was 
a  child,  had  applied  to  him  for  advice  concerning  it. 
He  had  to  do  it  to  keep  his  wife's  sister  in  the 
asylum,"  he  told  Robert;  "and  that  poor  girl  went  to 
work  because  she  was  forced  into  it,  not  because  she 
preferred  it,  you  may  be  sure  of  that." 

The  two  men  were  walking  down  the  street  one  wind 
swept  day  in  December,  when  the  pavement  showed 
ridges  of  dust  as  from  a  mighty  broom,  and  travellers 
walked  bending  before  it  with  backward  -  flying  gar 
ments. 

"You  may  be  right,"  said  Robert;  "still,  as  Aunt 
Cynthia  says,  so  many  girls  have  that  idea  of  earning 
money  instead  of  going  to  school." 

"  I  know  the  pitiful  need  of  money  has  tainted  many 
poor  girls  with  a  monstrous  and  morbid  overvalue 
of  it,"  said  Risley,  "and  for  that  I  cannot  see  they 
are  to  blame;  but  in  this  case  I  am  sure  it  was  not  so. 
That  poor  child  gave  up  Vassar  College  and  went  to 
work  because  she  was  fairly  forced  into  it  by  circum 
stances.  The  aunt's  husband  ran  away  with  another 
woman,  and  left  her  destitute,  so  that  the  support  of 
her  and  her  child  came  upon  the  Brewsters ;  and  Brew 
ster  has  been  out  of  work  a  long  time  now,  I  know.  Pie 
told  me  so.  That  mortgage  had  to  be  raised,  and  the 
girl  had  to  go  to  work ;  there  was  no  other  way  out 
of  it." 

371 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Why  didn't  she  tell  Aunt  Cynthia  so?"  asked  Robert. 

"Because  she  is  Ellen  Brewster,  the  outgrowth  of 
the  child  who  would  not — "  Risley  checked  himself 
abruptly. 

"I  know/'  said  Robert,  shortly. 

The  other  man  started.  "  How  long  have  you  known 
— she  did  not  tell?" 

Robert  laughed  a  little.  "  Oh  no,"  he  replied.  "  No 
body  told.  I  went  there  to  call,  and  saw  my  own  old 
doll  sitting  in  a  little  chair  in  a  corner  of  the  parlor. 
She  did  not  tell,  but  she  knew  that  I  knew.  That  child 
was  a  trump." 

"  Well,  what  can  you  expect  of  a  girl  who  was  a  child 
like  that?"  said  Risley.  "Mind  you,  in  a  way  I  don't 
like  it.  This  power  for  secretiveness  and  this  rigidity 
of  pride  in  a  girl  of  that  age  strike  me  rather  unpleas 
antly.  Of  course  she  was  too  proud  to  tell  Cynthia 
the  true  reason,  and  very  likely  thought  they  would 
blame  her  father,  or  Cynthia  might  feel  that  she  was 
in  a  measure  hinting  to  her  to  do  more." 

"It  would  have  looked  like  that,"  said  Robert,  re 
flecting. 

"Without  any  doubt  that  was  what  she  thought; 
still,  I  don't  like  this  strength  in  so  young  a  girl.  She 
will  make  a  more  harmonious  woman  than  girl,  for 
she  has  not  yet  grown  up  to  her  own  character.  But 
depend  upon  it,  that  girl  never  went  to  work  of  her 
own  free  choice." 

"You  say  the  father  is  out  of  work?"  Robert  said. 

"  Yes,  he  has  not  had  work  for  six  months.  He  said, 
\vith  the  most  dejected  dignity  and  appeal  that  I  ever 
saw  in  my  life,  that  they  begin  to  think  him  too  old, 
that  the  younger  men  are  preferred." 

"I  wonder,"  Robert  began,  then  he  stopped  con 
fusedly.  It  had  been  on  his  tongue  to  say  that  he 
wondered  if  he  could  not  get  some  employment  for  him 

372 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ai  Lloyd's;  then  he  remembered  his  uncle,  and  stopped. 
Robert  had  begun  to  understand  the  older  man's 
methods,  and  also  to  understand  that  they  were  not  to 
be  cavilled  at  or  disputed,  even  by  a  nephew  for  whom 
he  had  undoubtedly  considerable  affection. 

"It  is  nonsense,  of  course,"  said  Risley.  "The 
man  is  not  by  any  means  old  or  past  his  usefulness, 
although  I  must  admit  he  has  that  look.  He  cannot  be 
any  older  than  your  uncle.  Speaking  of  your  uncle, 
how  is  Mrs.  Lloyd?" 

"I  fear  Aunt  Lizzie  is  very  far  from  well,"  replied 
Robert,  "but  she  tries  to  keep  it  from  Uncle  Norman." 

"  I  don't  see  how  she  can.  She  looked  ghastly  when 
I  met  her  the  other  day." 

"That  was  when  Uncle  Norman  was  in  New  York," 
said  Robert.  "It  is  different  when  he  is  at  home." 
As  he  spoke,  an  expression  of  intensest  pity  came  over 
the  young  man's  face.  "  I  wonder  what  a  woman  who 
loves  her  husband  will  not  do  to  shield  him  from  any 
annoyance  or  suffering,"  he  said. 

"I  believe  some  women  are  born  fixed  to  a  sort  of 
spiritual  rack  for  the  sake  of  love,  and  remain  there 
through  life,"  said  Risley.  "But  I  have  always  liked 
Mrs.  Lloyd.  She  ought  to  have  good  advice.  What 
is  it,  has  she  told  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Robert. 

"It  will  be  quite  safe  with  me." 

Robert  whispered  one  word  in  his  ear. 

"My  God!"  said  Risley,  "that?  And  do  you  mean 
to  say  that  she  has  had  no  advice  except  Dr.  Story?" 

"Yes,  I  took  her  to  New  York  to  a  specialist  some 
time  ago.  Uncle  Norman  never  knew  it." 

"And  nothing  can  be  done?" 

"  She  could  have  an  operation,  but  the  success  would 
be  very  doubtful." 

"  And  that  she  will  not  consent  to?" 
373 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"She  has  not  yet." 

"How  long?" 

"  Oh,  she  may  live  for  years,  but  she  suffers  horribly, 
and  she  will  suffer  more." 

"  And  you  say  he  does  not  know?" 

"No." 

"  Why,  look  here,  Robert,  dare  you  assume  the  re 
sponsibility?  What  wTill  he  say  when  he  finds  out  that 
you  have  kept  it  from  him?" 

"  I  don't  care/'  said  Robert.  "  I  will  not  break  an 
oath  exacted  by  a  woman  in  such  straits  as  that,  and 
I  don't  see  what  good  it  could  do  to  tell  him." 

"  He  might  persuade   her  to  have  the  operation." 

"  His  mere  existence  is  persuasion  enough,  if  she  is  to 
be  persuaded.  And  I  hope  she  may  consent  before  long. 
She  has  seemed  a  little  more  comfortable  lately,  too." 

"  I  suppose  sometimes  those  hideous  things  go  away 
as  mysteriously  as  they  come,"  said  Risley. 

"Yes,"  replied  Robert.  "Going  back  to  our  first 
subject — " 

Risley  laughed.     "Here  she  is  coming,"  he  said. 

In  fact,  at  that  moment  they  came  abreast  the  street 
that  led  to  the  factories,  and  the  six-o'clock  whistle  was 
just  dying  away  in  a  long  reverberation,  and  the  work 
men  pouring  out  of  the  doors  and  down  the  stairs.  El 
len  had  moved  quickly,  for  she  had  an  errand  at  the 
grocery-store  before  she  went  home.  She  was  going 
to  get  some  oysters  for  a  hot  stew  for  supper,  of  which 
her  father  was  very  fond.  She  had  a  little  oyster-can 
in  her  hand  when  she  met  the  two  gentlemen.  She  had 
grown  undeniably  thinner  since  summer,  but  she  was 
charming.  Her  short  black  skirt  and  her  coarse  gray 
jacket  fitted  her  as  well  as  if  they  had  been  tailor-made. 
There  was  nothing  tawdry  or  slatternly  about  her.  She 
looked  every  inch  a  lad}7,  even  with  the  drawback  of 
an  oyster-can,  and  mittens  instead  of  gloves. 

374 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Both  Risley  and  Robert  raised  their  hats,  and  Ellen 
bowed.  She  did  not  smile,  but  her  face  contracted  cu 
riously,  and  her  color  obviously  paled.  Risley  looked 
at  Robert  after  they  had  passed. 

"I  have  called  on  her  twice."  said  Robert,  as  if  an 
swering  a  question.  His  relations  with  the  older  man 
had  become  very  close,  almost  like  those  of  father  and 
son,  though  Risley  was  hardly  old  enough  for  that  re 
lation. 

"And  you  haven't  been  since  she  went  to  work?" 

"No."' 

"  But  you  would  have,  had  she  gone  to  college  instead 
of  going  to  work  in  a  shoe-factory?"  Risley ;s  voice 
had  a  tone  of  the  gentlest  conceivable  sarcasm. 

Robert  colored.  "  Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  he  said.  Then 
he  turned  to  Risley  with  a  burst  of  utter  frankness. 
"  Hang  it!  old  fellow,"  he  said,  "  you  know  how  I  have 
been  brought  up;  you  know  how  she — you  know  all 
about  it.  What  is  a  fellow  to  do?" 

"Do  what  he  pleases.  If  it  would  please  me  to  call 
on  that  splendid  young  thing,  I  should  call  if  I  were 
the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias." 

"Well,  I  will  call/'  said  Robert. 
375 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  very  next  evening  Robert  Lloyd  went  to  call  on 
Ellen.  As  he  started  out  he  was  conscious  of  a  strange 
sensation  of  shock,  as  if  his  feet  had  suddenly  touched 
firm  ground.  All  these  months  since  Ellen  had  been 
working  in  the  factory  he  had  been  vacillating.  lie 
was  undoubtedly  in  love  with  her ;  he  did  not  for  a  mo 
ment  cheat  himself  as  to  that.  When  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  her  fair  head  among  the  other  girls,  he  real 
ized  how  unspeakably  dear  she  was  to  him.  Ellen  never 
entered  nor  left  the  factory  that  he  did  not  know  it.  With 
out  actually  seeing  her,  he  was  conscious  of  her  pres 
ence  alwaj's.  He  acknowledged  to  himself  that  there 
was  no  one  like  her  for  him,  and  never  would  be.  He 
tried  to  interest  himself  in  other  young  women,  but 
always  there  was  Ellen,  like  the  constant  refrain  of  a 
song.  All  other  women  meant  to  him  not  them 
selves,  but  Ellen.  Womanhood  itself  was  Ellen  for 
his  manhood.  He  knew  it,  and  yet  that  strain  of  utterly 
impassionate  judgment  and  worldly  wisdom  which  was 
born  in  him  kept  him  from  making  any  advances  to  her. 
Now,  however,  the  radicalism  of  Risley  had  acted  like 
a  spur  to  his  own  inclination.  His  judgment  was 
in  abeyance.  He  said  to  himself  that  he  would  give 
it  up;  he  would  go  to  see  the  girl — that  he  would  win 
her  if  he  could.  He  said  to  himself  that  she  had  been 
wronged,  that  Risley  was  right  about  her,  that  she 
was  good  and  noble. 

As  the  car  drew  near  the  Brewsters,  his  tenderness 
seemed  to  outspeed  the  electricity.  The  girl's  fair 

376 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

face  was  plain  before  his  eyes,  as  if  she  were  actually 
there,  and  it  was  idealized  and  haloed  as  with  the  light 
of  gold  and  precious  stones.  All  at  once,  since  he  had 
given  himself  loose  rein,  he  overtook,  as  it  were,  the 
true  meaning  of  her.  "The  dear  child/'  he  thought, 
with  a  rush  of  tenderness  like  pain — "the  dear  child. 
There  she  gave  up  everything  and  went  to  work,  and 
let  us  blame  her,  rather  than  have  her  father  blamed. 
The  dear,  proud  child.  She  did  that  rather  than  seem 
to  beg  for  more  help." 

When  Robert  got  off  the  car  he  was  ready  to  fall  at 
her  feet,  to  push  between  her  and  the  roughness  of  life, 
between  her  and  the  whole  world. 

He  went  up  the  little  walk  between  the  dry  shrubs 
and  rang  the  bell.  There  was  no  light  in  the  front 
windows  nor  in  the  hall.  Presently  he  heard  footsteps, 
and  saw  a  glimmer  of  light  advancing  towards  him 
through  the  length  of  the  hall.  There  were  muslin-cur 
tained  side-lights  to  the  door.  Then  the  door  opened,  and 
little  Amabel  Tenny  stood  there  holding  a  small  kero 
sene  lamp  carefully  in  both  hands.  She  held  it  in  such 
a  manner  that  the  light  streamed  up  in  Robert's  face 
and  nearly  blinded  him.  He  was  dimly  conscious  of 
a  little  face  full  of  a  certain  chary  innocence  and  pathos 
regarding  him. 

"Is  Miss  Ellen  Brewster  at  home?"  asked  Robert, 
smiling  down  at  the  little  thing. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  Amabel. 

Then  she  remained  perfectly  still,  holding  the  lamp, 
as  if  she  had  been  some  little  sculptured  light-bearer. 
She  did  not  return  his  smile,  and  she  did  not  ask  him 
in.  She  simply  regarded  him  with  her  sharp,  inno 
cent,  illuminated  face.  Robert  felt  ridiculously  non 
plussed. 

"  Did  you  say  she  was  in,  my  dear?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  Amabel,  then  relapsed  into  silence. 
377 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"Can  I  see  her?"  asked  Robert,  desperately. 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Amabel.  Then  she  stood 
still,  as  before,  holding  the  lamp. 

Robert  began  to  wonder  what  he  was  to  do,  when 
he  heard  a  woman's  voice  calling  from  the  sitting-room 
at  the  end  of  the  hall,  the  door  of  which  had  been  left 
ajar : 

"Amabel  Tenny,  what  are  you  doin'?  You  are 
coldin'  the  house  all  off!  Who  is  it?" 

"  It's  a  man,  Aunt  Fanny,"  called  Amabel. 

"  Who  is  the  man?"  asked  the  voice.  Then,  much 
to  Robert's  relief,  Fanny  herself  appeared. 

She  colored  a  flaming  red  when  she  saw  him.  She 
looked  at  Amabel  as  if  she  had  an  impulse  to  shake 
her. 

"Why,  Mr.  Lloyd,  is  it  you?"  she  cried. 

"  Good-evening,  Mrs.  Brewster ;  is — is  your  daughter 
at  home?"  asked  Robert.  He  felt  inclined  to  roar  with 
laughter,  and  yet  a  curious  dismay  was  beginning  to 
take  possession  of  him. 

"  Yes,  Ellen  is  at  home,"  replied  Fanny,  with  alacrity. 
"Walk  in,  Mr.  Lloyd."  She  was  blushing  and  smil 
ing  as  if  she  had  been  her  own  daughter.  It  was  fool 
ish,  yet  pathetic.  Although  Fanny  asked  the  young 
man  to  walk  in,  and  snatched  the  lamp  peremptorily 
from  Amabel's  hand,  she  still  hesitated.  Robert  be 
gan  to  wronder  if  he  should  ever  be  admitted.  He  did 
not  dream  of  the  true  reason  for  the  hesitation.  There 
was  no  fire  in  the  parlor,  and  in  the  sitting-room  were 
Andrew,  John  Sargent,  and  Mrs.  Wetherhed.  It  seemed 
to  her  highly  important  that  Ellen  should  see  her  caller 
by  herself,  but  how  to  take  him  into  that  cold  parlor? 

Finally,  however,  she  made  up  her  mind  to  do  so. 
She  opened  the  parlor  door. 

"Please  walk  in  this  way,  Mr.  Lloyd,"  said  she,  and 
Robert  followed  her  in. 

37* 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

It  was  a  bitter  night  outside,  and  the  temperature  in 
the  unused  room  was  freezing.  The  windows  behind 
the  cheap  curtains  were  thickly  furred  with  frost. 

"  Please  be  seated,"  said  Fanny. 

She  indicated  the  large  easy-chair,  and  Robert  seated 
himself  without  removing  his  outer  coat,  yet  the  icy  cold 
of  the  cushions  struck  through  him. 

Fanny  ignited  a  match  to  light  the  best  lamp  with 
its  painted  globe.  Her  fingers  trembled.  She  had 
to  use  three  matches  before  she  was  successful. 

"Can't  I  assist  you?"  asked  Robert. 

"  No,thank  you,"  replied  Fanny ;  "  I  guess  the  matches 
are  clamp.  I've  got  it  now."  Her  voice  shook.  She 
turned  to  Robert  when  the  lamp  was  lighted,  still  hold 
ing  the  small  one,  which  she  had  set  for  the  moment 
on  the  table.  The  strong  double  light  revealed  her 
face  of  abashed  delight,  although  the  young  man  did 
not  understand  it.  It  was  the  solicitude  of  the  mother 
for  the  child  which  dignified  all  coarseness  and  folly. 

"I  guess  you  had  better  keep  on  your  overcoat  a 
little  while  till  I  get  the  fire  built,"  said  she.  "This 
room  ain't  very  warm." 

Robert  tried  to  say  something  polite  about  not  feeling 
cold,  but  the  lie  was  too  obvious.  Instead,  he  remarked 
that  his  coat  was  very  warm,  as  it  was,  indeed,  being 
lined  with  fur. 

"  I'll  have  the  fire  kindled  in  a  minute,"  Fanny  said. 

"Now  don't  trouble  yourself,  Mrs.  Brewster,"  said 
Robert.  "I  am  quite  warm  in  this  coat,  unless,"  he 
added,  lamely,  "  I  could  go  out  where  you  were  sitting." 

"There's  company  out  there,"  said  Fanny,  with  em 
barrassed  significance.  She  blushed  as  she  spoke, 
and  Robert  blushed  also,  without  knowing  why. 

"It's  no  trouble  at  all  to  start  a  fire,"  said  Fanny; 
"this  chimney  draws  fine.  I'll  speak  to  Ellen." 

Robert,  left  alone  in  the  freezing  room,  felt  his  dis- 
379 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

may  deepen.  Barriers  of  tragedy  are  nothing  to  those 
of  comedy.  He  began  to  wonder  if  he  were  not,  after 
all,  doing  a  foolish  thing.  The  hall  door  had  been 
left  ajar,  and  he  presently  became  aware  of  Amabel's 
little  face  and  luminous  eyes  set  therein. 

Robert  smiled,  and  to  his  intense  astonishment  the 
child  made  a  little  run  to  him  and  snuggled  close  to 
his  side.  He  lifted  her  up  on  his  knee,  and  wrapped 
his  fur  coat  around  her.  Amabel  thrust  out  one  tiny 
hand  and  began  to  stroke  the  sable  collar. 

"It's  fur,"  said  she,  with  a  bright,  wise  look  into 
Robert's  face. 

"  Yes,  it's  fur,"  said  he.     "  Do  you  know  what  kind?" 

She  shook  her  head,  with  bright  eyes  still  on  his. 

"It  is  sable,"  said  Robert,  "and  it  is  the  coat  of  a 
little  animal  that  lives  very  far  north,  where  it  is  as  cold 
and  colder  than  this  all  the  time,  and  the  ice  and  snow 
never  melts." 

Suddenly  Amabel  slipped  off  his  knee,  pushing  aside 
his  caressing  arm  with  a  violent  motion.  Then  she 
stood  aloof,  eying  him  with  unmistakable  reproof  and 
hostility.  Robert  laughed. 

"  What  is  the  matter?"  he  said. 

"  What  does  he  do  without  his  coat  if  it  is  as  cold  as 
that  where  he  lives?"  asked  Amabel,  severely.  There 
was  almost  an  accent  of  horror  in  her  childish  voice. 

"  Why,  my  dear  child,"  said  Robert,  "  the  little  animal 
is  dead.  He  isn't  running  around  without  his  coat. 
He  was  shot  for  his  fur." 

"To  make  you  a  coat?"  Amabel's  voice  was  full  of 
judicial  severity. 

"  Well,  in  one  way,"  replied  Robert,  laughing.  "  It 
was  shot  to  get  the  fur  to  make  somebody  a  coat,  and 
I  bought  it.  Come  back  here  and  have  it  wrapped 
round  ;/ou;  you'll  freeze  if  you  don't." 

Amabel  came  back  and  sat  on  his  knee,  and  let  him 

380 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

wrap  the  fur-lined  garment  around  her.  A  strange 
sensation  of  tenderness  and  protection  came  over  the 
young  man  as  he  felt  the  little,  slender  body  of  the  child 
nestle  against  his  own.  He  had  begun  to  surmise 
who  she  was.  However,  Amabel  herself  told  him  in  a 
moment. 

"  My  mamma's  sick,  and  they  took  her  to  an  asjdum. 
And  my  papa  has  gone  away,"  she  said. 

"You  poor  little  soul,"  said  Robert,  tenderly.  Am 
abel  continued  to  look  at  him  with  eyes  of  keenest  in 
telligence,  wrhile  one  little  cheek  was  flattened  against 
his  breast. 

"I  live  with  Uncle  Andrew  and  Aunt  Fanny  now," 
said  she,  "and  I  sleep  with  Ellen." 

"But  you  like  living  here,  don't  you,  you  dear?" 
asked  Robert. 

"Yes,"  said  Amabel,  "and  I  like  to  stay  with  Ellen, 
but — but — I  want  to  see  my  mamma  and  papa,"  she 
wailed,  suddenly,  in  the  lowest  and  most  pitiful  wail 
imaginable. 

"Poor  little  darling,"  said  Robert,  stroking  her 
flaxen  hair.  Amabel  looked  up  at  him  with  her  little 
face  all  distorted  with  grief. 

"If  you  had  been  my  papa,  would  you  have  gone 
away  and  left  Amabel  ?"  she  asked,  quiveringly .  Robert 
gathered  her  to  him  in  a  strong  clasp  of  protection. 

"No,  you  little  darling,  I  never  should,"  he  cried, 
fervently. 

At  that  moment  he  wished  devoutly  that  he  had  the 
handling  of  the  man  who  had  deserted  this  child. 

"I  like  you  most  as  well  as  my  own  papa,"  said 
Amabel.  "You  ain't  so  big  as  my  papa."  She 
said  that  in  a  tone  of  evident  disparagement. 

Then  the  sitting-room  door  opened,  and  Fanny  and 
Ellen  and  Andrew  appeared,  the  last  with  a  great 
basket  of  wood  and  kindlings. 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Robert  set  down  Amabel,  and  sprang  to  his  feet  to 
greet  Andrew  and  Ellen.  Andrew,  after  depositing  his 
basket  beside  the  stove,  shook  hands  with  a  sort  of  sad 
awkwardness.  Robert  saw  that  the  man  had  aged 
immeasurably  since  he  had  last  seen  him. 

"  It  is  a  cold  night,  Mr.  Brewster,"  he  said,  and  knew 
the  moment  he  said  it  that  it  was  not  a  happy  remark. 

"It  is  pretty  cold,"  agreed  Andrew,  "and  it's  cold 
here  in  this  room." 

"Oh,  it'll  be  warm  in  a  minute;  this  stove  heats  up 
quick,"  cried  Fanny,  with  agitated  briskness.  She 
began  pulling  the  kindlings  out  of  the  basket. 

"Here,  you  let  me  do  that,"  said  Andrew,  and  was 
down  on  his  knees  beside  her.  The  two  were  cramming 
the  fuel  into  the  little,  air-tight  stove,  while  Robert  was  j 
greeting  Ellen.  The  awkwardness  of  the  situation  was 
evidently  overcoming  her.  She  was  quite  pale,  and 
her  voice  trembled  as  she  returned  his  good-evening. 
Amabel  left  the  young  man,  and  clung  tightly  to  Ellen's 
hand,  drawing  her  skirt  around  her  until  only  her  little 
face  was  visible  above  the  folds. 

The  fumes  from  a  match  filled  the  room,  and  the 
fire  began  to  roar. 

"It'll  be  warm  in  a  minute,"  said  Fanny,  rising. 
"  You  leave  the  register  open  till  it's  real  good  and  hot, 
Ellen,  and  there's  plenty  more  wood  in  the  basket. 
Here,  Amabel,  you  come  out  in  the  other  room  with 
Aunt  Fanny." 

But  Amabel,  instead  of  obeying,  made  a  dart  towards 
Robert,  who  caught  her  up,  laughing,  and  smuggled 
her  into  the  depths  of  his  fur-lined  coat. 

"Come  right  along,  Amabel,"  said  Fanny. 

But  Amabel  clung  fast  to  Robert,  with  a  mischievous 
roll  of  an  eye  at  her  aunt. 

"  Amabel,"  said  Fanny,  authoritatively. 

"Come,  Amabel,"  said  Andrew. 

382 


B'V 


XL^-^flKab1- 


'THE   AWKWARDNESS   OF  THE   SITUATION   WAS   EVIDENTLY 
OVERCOMING  HER" 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"Oh,  let  her  stay/'  Robert  said,  laughing.  "I'll 
keep  her  in  my  coat  until  it  is  warm." 

"I'm  afraid  she'll  bother  you,"  said  Fanny. 

"Not  a  bit,"  replied  Robert. 

"You  are  a  naughty  girl,  Amabel,"  said  Fanny; 
but  she  went  out  of  the  room,  with  Andrew  at  her  heels. 
She  did  not  know  what  else  to  do,  since  the  young 
man  had  expressed  a  desire  to  keep  the  child.  She 
had  thought  he  would  have  preferred  a  tete-a-tete  with 
Ellen.  Ellen  sat  down  on  the  sofa  covered  with  olive- 
green  plush,  beyond  the  table,  and  the  light  of  the  hide 
ous  lamp  fell  full  upon  her  face.  She  was  thin,  and 
much  of  her  lovely  bloom  was  missing  between  her  agita 
tion  and  the  cold ;  but  Robert,  looking  at  her,  realized 
how  dear  she  was  to  him.  There  was  something  about 
that  small  figure,  and  that  fair  head  held  with  such 
firmness  of  pride,  and  that  soul  outlooking  from  steady 
blue  eyes,  which  filled  all  his  need  of  life.  His  love  for 
the  pearl  quite  ignored  its  setting  of  the  common  and 
the  ridiculous.  He  looked  at  her  and  smiled.  Ellen 
smiled  back  tremulously,  then  she  cast  down  her  eyes. 
The  fire  was  roaring,  but  the  room  was  freezing.  The 
sitting-room  door  was  opened  a  crack,  and  remained  so 
for  a  second,  then  it  was  widened,  and  Andrew  peeped 
in.  Then  he  entered,  tiptoeing  gingerly,  as  if  he  were 
afraid  of  disturbing  a  meeting.  He  brought  a  blue 
knitted  shawl,  which  he  put  over  Ellen's  shoulders. 

"Mother  thinks  you  had  better  keep  this  on  till  the 
room  gets  warm,"  he  whispered.  Then  he  withdrew, 
shutting  the  door  softly. 

Robert,  left  alone  with  Ellen  in  this  solemnly  impor 
tant  fashion,  felt  utterly  at  a  loss.  He  had  never  con 
sidered  himself  especially  shy,  but  an  embarrassment 
which  was  almost  ridiculous  was  over  him.  Ellen  sat 
with  her  eyes  cast  down.  He  felt  that  the  child  on  his 
knee  was  regarding  them  both  curiously. 

3*3 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"  If  you  have  come  to  see  Ellen,  why  don't  you  speak 
to  her?"  demanded  Amabel,  suddenly.  Then  both 
Robert  and  Ellen  laughed. 

"This  is  your  aunt's  little  girl,  isn't  she?"  asked 
Robert. 

Amabel  answered  before  Ellen  was  able.  "My 
mamma  is  sick,  and  they  carried  her  away  to  the  asy 
lum,"  she  told  Robert.  "  She — she  tried  to  hurt  Ama 
bel  ;  she  tried  to  " — Amabel  made  that  hideous  gesture 
with  her  tiny  forefinger  across  her  throat.  "Mamma 
was  sick  or  she  wouldn't,"  she  added,  challengingly,  to 
Robert. 

"Of  course  she  wouldn't,  you  poor  little  soul,"  said 
Robert. 

Suddenly  Amabel  burst  into  tears,  and  began  to 
wriggle  herself  free  from  his  arms.  "  Let  me  go,"  she 
demanded;  "let  me  go.  I  want  Ellen." 

When  Robert  loosened  his  grasp  she  fled  to  Ellen, 
and  was  in  her  lap  with  a  bound. 

"  I  want  my  mamma — I  want  my  mamma,"  she 
moaned. 

Ellen  leaned  her  cheek  against  the  poor  little  flax 
en  head.  "There,  there,  darling,"  she  whispered, 
"don't.  Mamma  will  come  home  as  soon  as  she 
gets  better." 

"  How  long  will  that  be,  Ellen?" 

"Pretty  soon,  I  hope,  darling.     Don't." 

Poor  Eva  Tenny  had  been  in  the  asylum  some  four 
months,  and  the  reports  as  to  her  condition  were  no 
more  favorable.  Ellen's  voice,  in  spite  of  herself,  had  a 
hopeless  tone,  which  the  child  was  quick  to  detect. 

"  I  want  my  mamma,"  she  repeated.  "  I  want  her, 
Ellen.  It  has  been  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to 
morrow  after  that,  and  the  to-morrows  are  yesterdays, 
and  she  hasn't  come." 

"She  will  come  some  time,  darling." 

384 


THE    PORTION     OF    LABOR 

Robert  sat  eying  the  two  with  intensest  pity.  "Do 
you  like  chocolates,  Amabel?"  he  asked. 

The  child  repeated  that  she  wanted  her  mother  still, 
as  with  a  sort  of  mechanical  regularity  of  grief,  but 
she  fastened  her  eyes  on  him. 

"  Because  I  am  going  to  send  you  a  big  box  of  them 
to-morrow,"  said  Robert. 

Amabel  turned  to  Ellen.  "Does  he  mean  it?"  she 
asked. 

"I  guess  so,"  replied  Ellen,  laughing. 

Amabel,  looking  from  one  to  the  other,  also  began  to 
laugh  unwillingly. 

Then  the  sitting-room  door  opened,  and  Fanny  called 
sharply  and  imperatively,  "Amabel,  Amabel;  come!" 

Amabel  clung  more  tightly  to  Ellen,  who  began  to 
gently  loosen  her  arms. 

"  Amabel  Tenny,  come  this  minute.  It  is  your  bed 
time,"  said  Fanny. 

"I  guess  you  had  better  go,  darling,"  whispered 
Ellen. 

"  I  don't  want  to  go  to  bed  till  you  do,  Ellen,"  whis 
pered  the  child. 

Ellen  gently  but  firmly  unclasped  the  clinging  arms. 
"Run  along,  dear,"  she  whispered. 

"  I  will  send  those  chocolates  to-morrow,"  suggested 
Robert. 

Amabel  seemed  to  do  everything  by  sudden  and  vio 
lent  impulses.  All  at  once  she. ceased  resisting.  She 
slid  down  from  Ellen's  lap  as  quickly  as  she  had 
gotten  into  it.  She  clutched  her-  neck  with  two  little, 
wiry  anus,  kissed  her  hard  on  the  mouth,  darted 
across  the  room  to  Robert,  threw  her  arms  around  his 
neck  and  kissed  him,  then  flew  out  of  the  room. 

"  She  is  an  interesting  child,"  said  Robert,  who  felt, 
like  most  people,  the  delicate  flattery  of  a  child's  un 
solicited  caresses. 

385 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"  I  am  very  fond  of  her,"  replied  Ellen. 

Then  the  two  were  silent.  Robert  suddenly  realized 
that  there  was  little  to  say  unless  he  ventured  on  debat 
able  ground.  It  would  be  too  absurd  of  him  to  com 
mence  making  love  at  once,  and  as  for  asking  Ellen 
about  her  work,  that  seemed  a  subject  better  let  alone. 

Ellen  herself  opened  the  conversation  by  inquiring 
for  his  aunt. 

"Aunt  Cynthia  is  very  well,"  replied  Robert.  "I 
was  in  there  last  evening.  You  have  not  been  to  see 
her  lately,  Miss  Brewster." 

Robert  realized  as  soon  as  he  had  said  that  that  he 
had  made  a  mistake. 

"No,"  replied  Ellen.  She  obviously  paled  a  little, 
and  looked  at  him  wistfully.  The  young  man  could 
not  stand  it  any  longer,  so  straight  into  the  heart  of 
the  matter  he  lunged. 

"  Look  here,  Miss  Brewster,"  he  said,  "  why  on  earth 
didn't  you  tell  Aunt  Cynthia?" 

"Tell  her?"  repeated  Ellen,  vaguely. 

"  Yes ;  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  to  her.  Tell  her  just 
why  you  went  to  work,  and  gave  up  college?" 

Ellen  colored,  and  looked  at  him  half  defiantly,  half 
piteously.  "  I  told  her  all  I  ought  to,"  she  said. 

"But  you  did  not;  pardon  me,"  said  Robert,  "  you 
did  not  tell  her  half  enough.  You  let  her  think  that 
you  actually  of  your  own  free  choice  went  to  work  in 
the  factory  rather  than  go  to  college." 

"So  I  did,"  replied  Ellen,  looking  at  him  proudly. 

"  Of  course  you  did,  in  one  sense,  but  in  another  you 
did  not.  You  deliberately  chose  to  make  a  sacrifice; 
but  it  was  a  sacrifice.  You  cannot  deny  that  it  was  a 
sacrifice." 

Ellen  was  silent. 

"But  you  gave  Aunt  Cynthia  the  impression  that  it 
was  not  a  sacrifice,"  said  Robert,  almost  severely. 

386 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Ellen's  face  quivered  a  little.  "  I  saw  no  other  way 
to  do/'  she  said,  faintly.  The  authoritative  tone  which 
this  young  man  was  taking  with  her  stirred  her  as 
nothing  had  ever  stirred  her  in  her  life  before.  She 
felt  like  a  child  before  him. 

"You  have  no  right  to  give  such  a  false  impression 
of  your  own  character,"  said  Robert. 

"It  was  either  that  or  a  false  impression  of  another," 
returned  Ellen,  tremulously. 

"  You  mean  that  she  might  have  blamed  your  pa 
rents,  and  thought  that  they  were  forcing  you  into 


Ellen  nodded. 

"  And  I  suppose  you  thought,  too,  that  maybe  Aunt 
Cynthia  would  suspect,  if  you  told  her  all  the  difficul- 
;ies,  that  you  were  hinting  for  more  assistance." 

Ellen  nodded,  and  her  lip  was  quivering.  Suddenly 
ill  her  force  of  character  seemed  to  have  deserted  her, 
md  she  looked  more  like  a  child  than  Amabel.  She 
ictually  put  both  her  little  fists  to  her  eyes.  After  all, 
.he  girl  was  very  young,  a  child  forced  by  the  stress  of 
ircumstances  to  premature  development,  but  she  could 
•elapse  before  the  insistence  of  another  nature. 

Robert  looked  at  her,  his  own  face  working,  then  he 
:ould  bear  it  no  longer.  He  was  over  on  the  sofa  beside 
£llen  and  had  her  in  his  arms.  "  You  poor  little  thing," 
le  whispered.  "Don't.  I  have  loved  you  ever  since 
he  first  time  I  saw  you.  I  ought  to  have  told  you  so 
)efore.  Don't  you  love  me  a  little,  Ellen?" 

But  Ellen  released  herself  with  a  motion  of  firm  elu- 
liveness  and  looked  at  him.  The  tears  still  stood  in  her 
:yes,  but  her  face  was  steady.  "I  have  been  putting 
rou  out  of  my  mind,"  said  she. 

"  But  could  you?"  whispered  Robert,  leaning  over  her. 

Ellen  did  not  reply,  but  looked  down  and  trembled. 

"Could  you?"  repeated  Robert,  and  there  was  in  his 
387 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

voice  that  masculine  insistence  which  is  a  true  note  of 
nature,  and  means  the  subjugation  of  the  feminine  into 
harmony. 

Ellen  did  not  speak,  but  every  line  in  her  body  be 
trayed  helpless  yielding. 

"  You  know  you  could  not/'  said  Robert  with  triumph, 
and  took  her  in  his  arms  again. 

But  he  reckoned  without  the  girl,  who  was,  after  all, 
stronger  than  her  natural  instincts,  and  able  to  rise 
above  and  subjugate  them.  She  freed  herself  from  him 
resolutely,  rose,  and  stood  before  him,  looking  at  him 
quite  unfalteringly  and  accusingly. 

"Why  do  you  come  now?"  she  asked.  "You  say 
you  have  loved  me  from  the  first.  You  came  to  see 
me,  you  walked  home  with  me,  and  said  things  to  me 
that  made  me  think —  She  stopped. 

"  Made  you  think  what,  dear?"  asked  Robert.  He 
was  pale  and  indescribably  anxious  and  appealing. 
It  was  suddenly  revealed  to  him  that  this  plum  was  so 
firmly  attached  to  its  bough  of  individuality  that  pos 
sibly  love  itself  could  not  loosen  it. 

"You  made  me  think  that  perhaps  you  did  care  a 
little,"  said  Ellen,  in  a  low  but  unfaltering  voice. 

"You  thought  quite  right,  only  not  a  little,  but  a 
great  deal,"  said  Robert,  firmly. 

"  Then,"  said  Ellen,  "the  moment  I  gave  up  going  to 
college  and  went  to  work  you  never  came  to  see  me 
again ;  you  never  even  spoke  to  me  in  the  shop ;  you 
went  right  past  me  without  a  look." 

"Good  God!  child,"  Robert  interposed,  "don't  you 
know  why  I  did  that?" 

Ellen  looked  at  him  bewildered,  then  a  burning  red 
overspread  her  face.  "Yes,"  she  replied.  "I  didn't. 
But  I  do  now.  They  would  have  talked." 

"  I  thought  you  would  understand  that,"  said  Robert. 
"  I  had  only  the  best  motives  for  that.  I  cannot  speak 

388 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

|to  you  in  the  factory  any  more  than  I  have  done.  I 
icannot  expose  you  to  remark ;  but  as  for  my  not  calling, 
I  believed  what  you  said  to  my  aunt  and  to  me.  I 
| thought  that  you  had  deliberately  preferred  a  lower  life 
jto  a  higher  one — that  you  preferred  earning  money  to 
something  better.  I  thought — 

Robert  fairly  started  as  Ellen  began  talking  with  a 
fire  which  seemed  to  make  her  scintillate  before  his  eyes. 

"  You  talk  about  a  lower  and  a  higher  life,"  said  she. 
"  Is  it  true?  Is  Vassar  College  any  higher  than  a  shoe- 
factory  ?  Is  any  labor  which  is  honest,  and  done  with 
the  best  strength  of  man,  for  the  best  motives,  to  sup 
port  the  lives  of  those  he  loves,  or  to  supply  the  needs 
of  his  race,  any  higher  than  another?  Where  would 
even  books  be  without  this  very  labor  which  you  de 
spise —  the  books  which  I  should  have  learned  at  col 
lege?  Instead  of  being  benefited  by  the  results  of  la 
bor,  I  have  become  part  of  labor.  Why  is  that  lower?" 

Robert  stared  at  her. 

"I  have  come  to  feel  all  this  since  I  went  to  work/' 
said  Ellen,  speaking  in  a  high,  rapid  voice.  "  When 
I  went  to  work,  it  was,  as  you  thought,  for  my  folks, 
to  help  them,  for  my  father  was  out  of  work,  and  there 
was  no  other  way.  But  since  I  have  been  at  work  I 
have  realized  what  work  really  is.  There  is  a  glory 
over  it,  as  there  is  over  anything  which  is  done  faith 
fully  on  this  earth  for  good  motives,  and  I  have  seen 
the  glory,  and  I  am  not  ashamed  of  it ;  and  while  it  was 
a  sacrifice  at  first,  now,  while  I  should  like  the  other 
better,  I  do  not  think  it  is.  I  am  proud  of  my  work." 

The  girl  spoke  with  a  sort  of  rapt  enthusiasm.  The 
young  man  stared,  bewildered. 

Robert  caught  Ellen's  little  hands,  which  hung, 
tightly  clinched,  in  the  folds  of  her  dress,  and  drew  her 
down  to  his  side  again.  "See  here,  dear/'  he  said, 
"  maybe  you  are  right.  I  never  looked  at  it  in  this  way 

389 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

before,  but  you  do  not  understand.  I  love  you ;  I  want 
to  marry  you.  I  want  to  make  you  my  wife,  and  lift 
you  out  of  this  forever." 

Then  again  Ellen  freed  herself,  and  straightened 
her  head  and  faced  him.  "  There  is  nothing  for  me 
to  be  lifted  out  of/'  said  she.  "You  speak  as  if  I  were 
in  a  pit.  I  am  on  a  height." 

"My  God!  child,  how  many  others  feel  as  you,  do 
you  think,  out  of  the  whole  lot?"  cried  Robert. 

"  I  don't  know,"  replied  Ellen,  "  but  it  is  true.  What 
I  feel  is  true." 

Robert  caught  up  her  little  hand  and  kissed  it.  Then 
he  looked  at  its  delicate  outlines.  "Well,  it  may  be 
true,"  he  said,  "  but  look  at  yourself.  Can't  you  see 
that  you  are  not  fashioned  for  manual  labor?  Look 
at  this  little  hand." 

"That  little  hand  can  do  the  work,"  Ellen  replied, 
proudly. 

"But,  dear,"  said  Robert,  "admitting  all  this,  ad 
mitting  that  you  are  not  in  a  position  to  be  lifted — ad 
mitting  everything — let  us  come  back  to  our  original 
starting-point.  Dear,  I  love  you,  and  I  want  you  for 
my  wife.  Will  you  marry  me?" 

"No,  I  never  can,"  replied  Ellen,  with  a  long,  sobbing 
breath  of  renunciation. 

"Why  not?    Don't  you  love  me?" 

"Yes.     I  think  it  must  be  true  that  I  do.     I  said 
wouldn't ;  I  have  tried  not  to,  but  I  think  it  must  be 
true  that  I  do." 

"Then  why  not  marry  me?" 

"Because  it  will  be  impossible  for  my  father  and 
mother  to  get  along  and  support  Amabel  and  Aunt  Eva 
without  my  help,"  said  Ellen,  directly. 

"But  I—"  began  Robert. 

"Do  you  think  I  will  burden  you  with  the  support 
of  a  whole  family?"  said  Ellen. 

390 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"  Ellen,  you  don't  know  what  I  would  be  willing  to 
do  if  I  could  have  you,"  cried  the  j^oung  man,  fervently. 
And  he  was  quite  in  earnest.  At  that  moment  it  seemed 
to  him  that  he  could  even  come  and  live  there  in  that 
house,  with  the  hideous  lamp,  and  the  crushed-plush 
furniture,  and  the  eager  mother ;  that  he  could  go  with 
out  anything  and  everything  to  support  them  if  only 
he  could  have  this  girl  who  was  fairly  storming  his 
heart. 

"  I  wouldn't  be  willing  to  have  you,"  said  Ellen,  firm 
ly.  "  As  things  are  now  I  cannot  marry  you,  Mr.  Lloyd. 
Then,  too,"  she  added,  "you  asked  me  just  now  how 
many  people  looked  at  all  this  labor  as  I  do,  and  I  dare 
say  not  very  many.  I  know  not  many  of  your  kind  of 
people.  I  know  how  your  uncle  looks  at  it.  It  would 
hurt  you  socially  to  marry  a  girl  from  a  shoe-shop. 
Whether  it  is  just  or  not,  it  would  hurt  you.  It  can 
not  be,  as  matters  are  now,  Mr.  Lloyd." 

"But  you  love  me?" 

Ellen  suddenly,  as  if  pushed  by  some  mighty  force 
outside  herself,  leaned  towards  him,  and  he  caught  her 
in  his  arms.  He  tipped  back  her  face  and  kissed  her, 
and  looked  down  at  her  masterfully. 

"We  will  wait  a  little,"  he  said.  "I  will  never  give 
you  up  as  long  as  I  live  if  you  love  me,  Ellen." 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

WHEN  Ellen  went  out  into  the  sitting-room  that  even 
ing,  after  Robert  Lloyd  had  taken  leave,  her  father  and 
mother  were  still  there,  although  the  callers  had  gone. 
Both  of  them  looked  furtively  at  her  as  she  went  through 
the  room  to  the  kitchen  to  get  a  lamp,  then  they  looked 
at  each  other.  Fanny  was  glowing  with  half  shame 
faced  triumph;  Andrew  was  pale.  Ellen  did  not  re- 
enter  the  room,  but  simply  paused  at  the  door,  before 
going  up-stairs,  and  they  had  a  vision  of  a  face  in  a 
tumult  of  emotions,  with  eyes  and  hair  illuminated  to 
excess  of  brilliancy  by  the  lamp  which  she  held. 

"  Good-night/'  she  called,  and  her  voice  did  not  sound 
like  her  own. 

"Something  has  happened,"  Fanny  whispered  to 
Andrew,  when  Ellen's  chamber  door  had  closed. 

"Do  you  suppose  she's  goin'  to?"  whispered  An 
drew,  in  a  sort  of  breathless  fashion.  His  eyes  on  his 
wife's  face  were  sad  and  wistful. 

"Hush!  How  do  I  know?"  asked  Fanny.  "I  al 
ways  told  you  he  liked  her." 

However,  Fanny  looked  disturbed.  Presently  she 
went  out  in  the  kitchen  to  mix  up  some  bread,  and  she 
wept  a  little,  standing  in  a  corner,  with  her  face  hidden 
in  the  folds  of  an  old  shawl  which  hung  there  on  a  peg. 
Dictatorial  towards  circumstances  as  she  was  when  her 
beloved  daughter  came  in  question,  and  proud  as  she 
was  at  the  prospect  of  an  advantageous  marriage  for 
her,  she  remembered  her  sister  in  the  asylum,  she 
remembered  how  Andrew  was  out  of  work,  and  she 

392 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

could  not  understand  how  it  was  to  be  managed.  And 
all  this  was  aside  from  the  grief  which  she  would  have 
felt  in  any  case  at  losing  Ellen. 

As  for  Andrew,  the  next  morning  he  put  on  his  best 
clothes  and  went  by  trolley-cars  to  the  next  manufact 
uring  town,  not  a  city  like  Rowe,  but  a  busy  little  place 
with  two  large  factories,  and  tried  in  vain  to  get  a  job 
there.  As  he  came  home  on  the  crowded  car,  his  face 
was  so  despairing  that  the  people  looked  curiously  at 
him.  Andrew  had  always  been  mild  and  peaceable, 
but  at  that  moment  anarchistic  principles  began  to 
ferment  in  him.  When  a  portly  man,  swelling  os 
tentatiously  with  broadcloth  and  fine  linen,  wearing  a 
silk  hat,  and  carrying  a  gold-headed  cane  like  a  wand  of 
office,  got  into  the  car,  Andrew  looked  at  him  with  a 
sidelong  glance  which  was  almost  murderous.  The 
spiritual  bomb,  which  is  in  all  our  souls  for  our  fellow- 
men,  began  to  swell  towards  explosion.  This  man  was 
the  proprietor  of  one  of  the  great  factories  in  Leavitt, 
the  town  where  Andrew  had  vainly  sought  a  job.  He 
had  been  in  the  office  when  Andrew  entered,  and  the 
latter  had  heard  his  low  voice  of  instruction  to  the  fore 
man  that  that  man  was  too  old.  The  manufacturer, 
who  weighed  heavily,  and  described  a  vast  curve  of 
opulence  from  silk  hat  to  his  patent-leathers,  sat  op 
posite,  his  gold-headed  cane  planted  in  the  aisle,  his 
countenance  a  blank  of  complacent  power.  Andrew 
felt  that  he  hated  him. 

The  man's  face  was  not  intellectual,  not  as  intellectual 
as  Andrew's.  He  gave  the  impression  of  the  force  of 
matter  oncoming  and  irresistible,  some  inertia  which 
had  started  Heaven  knew  how.  This  man  had  inherited 
great  wealth,  as  Andrew  knew.  He  had  capital  with 
which  to  begin,  and  he  had  strength  to  roll  the  ac 
cumulating  ball.  Andrew  felt  more  and  more  how  he 
hated  this  man.  He  had  told  his  foreman  that  Andrew 

393 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

was  too  old,  and  Andrew  knew  that  he  was  no  older,  if 
as  old,  as  the  man  himself. 

"  If  I  had  been  born  under  the  Czar,  and  done  with  it, 
I  should  have  felt  differently,"  he  told  himself.  "But 
who  is  this  man?  What  right  has  he  to  say  that  his 
fellow-men  shall  or  shall  not?  Does  even  his  own 
property  give  him  the  right  of  dictation  over  others? 
What  is  property?  Is  it  anything  but  a  temporary 
lease  while  he  draws  the  breath  of  life?  What  of  it  in 
the  tomb,  to  which  he  shall  surely  come?  Shall  a  tempo 
rary  possession  give  a  man  the  right  to  wield  eternal 
power?  For  the  power  of  giving  or  withholding  the 
means  of  life  may  produce  eternal  results." 

When  the  man  rose  and  moved  down  the  car,  os 
cillating  heavily,  steadying  himself  with  his  gold-headed 
cane,  and  got  out  in  front  of  a  portentous  mansion, 
Andrew  would  scarcely  have  recognized  the  look  in  his 
own  eyes  had  he  seen  himself  in  a  mirror. 

"That  chap  is  pretty  well  fixed,"  said  a  man  next 
him,  to  one  on  the  other  side. 

"A  cool  half-million,"  replied  the  other. 

"  More  than  that,"  said  the  first  speaker.  "  His  father 
left  him  half  a  million  to  start  with,  besides  the  busi 
ness,  and  he's  been  piling  up  ever  since." 

"Do  you  work  there?" 

"  Did,  but  I  had  what  was  mighty  nigh  a  sunstroke 
last  summer ;  had  to  quit.  It  was  damned  hot  up  there 
under  the  roof.  It's  the  same  old  factory  his  father  had. " 

"Goin'  to  work  again?" 

"Next  week,  if  I'm  able,  but  I  dun'no'  whether  I 
can  stay  there  longer  than  till  spring.  It's  damned 
hot  up  there  under  the  roof." 

The  man  who  spoke  had  a  leaden  hue  of  face,  some 
thing  ghastly,  as  if  the  deadly  heat  had  begun  a  work 
of  decomposition.  Andrew  looked  at  him,  and  his 
hatred  against  the  rich  man  who  had  built  himself  a 

394 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stately  mansion,  and  kept  his  fellow-creatures  at  work 
for  him  in  an  unhealthy  factory  in  tropical  heat,  and 
had  condemned  him  for  being  too  old,  was  redoubled. 

"Andrew  Brewster,  where  have  you  been?"  Fanny 
asked,  when  he  got  home. 

"I've  been  to  Leavitt,"  answered  Andrew,  shortly. 

"To  see  if  you  could  get  a  job  there?" 

"Yes." 

Fanny  did  not  ask  if  he  had  been  successful.  She 
sighed,  and  took  another  stitch  in  the  wrapper  which 
she  was  making.  That  sigh  almost  drove  Andrew 
mad. 

"I  don't  see  what  has  got  you  into  such  a  habit  of 
sighing,"  he  said,  brutally. 

Fanny  looked  at  him  with  reproachful  anger.  "  An 
drew  Brewster,  you  ain't  like  yourself,"  said  she. 

"I  can't  help  it." 

"There's  no  need  for  you  to  pitch  into  me  because 
you  can't  get  work;  I  ain't  to  blame.  I'm  doing  all 
I  can.  I  won't  stand  it,  and  you  might  as  well  know 
it  first  as  last." 

Fanny  glared  angrily  at  her  husband,  then  the  tears 
sprang  to  her  eyes. 

Andrew  hesitated  a  moment,  then  he  leaned  over  her 
and  put  his  thin  cheek  against  her  rough  black  hair. 
"The  Lord  knows  I  don't  mean  to  be  harsh  to  you,  you 
poor  girl,"  said  he,  "but  I  wish  I  was  dead." 

Fanny  seemed  to  spring  into  resistance  like  a  wire. 
"Then  you  are  a  coward,  Andrew  Brewster,"  said  she, 
hotly.  "Talk  about  wishin'  you  was  dead.  I  'ain't 
got  time  to  die.  You'd  'nough  sight  better  go  out  into 
the  yard  and  split  up  some  of  that  wood." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  speak  so,  Fanny,"  said  Andrew, 
"but  sometimes  I  get  desperate,  and  I've  been  thinking 
of  Ellen." 

"Don't  you  suppose  I  have?"  asked  Fanny,  angrily. 
_  395 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Well,  there's  one  thing  about  it ;  we  won't  stand  in 
her  way,"  said  Andrew. 

"  No,  we  won't,"  replied  Fanny.  "  I'll  go  out  washing 
first." 

"She  hasn't  said  anything?" 

"No." 

As  time  went  on  Ellen  still  said  nothing.  She  had 
made  a  curious  compact  for  a  young  girl  with  her  lover. 
She  had  stipulated  that  no  engagement  was  to  exist, 
that  she  should  be  perfectly  free — when  she  said  that 
she  thought  of  Maud  Hemingway,  but  she  said  it 
without  a  tremor — and  if  years  hence  both  were  free 
and  of  the  same  mind  they  might  talk  of  it  again. 

Robert  had  rebelled  strenuously.  "  You  know  this 
will  shut  me  off  from  seeing  much  of  you,"  he  said. 
"You  know  I  told  you  how  it  will  be  about  my  even 
talking  much  to  you  in  the  factory." 

"Yes,  I  understand  that  now,"  replied  Ellen,  blush 
ing  ;  "  and  I  understand,  too,  that  you  cannot  come  to 
see  me  very  often  under  such  circumstances  without 
making  talk." 

"How  often?"  Robert  asked,  impetuously. 

Ellen  hesitated,  her  lip  quivered  a  little,  but  her  voice 
was  firm.  "  Not  of tener  than  two  or  three  times  a  year, 
I  am  afraid,"  said  she. 

"Great  Scott!"  cried  Robert.  Then  he  caught  her 
in  his  arms  again.  "  Do  you  suppose  I  can  stand  that?" 
he  whispered.  "Ellen,  I  cannot  consent  to  this!" 

"It  is  the  only  way,"  said  she.  She  freed  herself 
from  him  enough  to  look  into  his  eyes  with  a  brave, 
fearless  gaze  of  comradeship,  which  somehow  seemed 
to  make  her  dearer  than  anything  else. 

"  But  to  see  you  to  speak  to  only  two  or  three  times 
a  year!"  groaned  Robert.  "You  are  cruel,  Ellen. 
You  don't  know  how  I  love  you." 

"There  isn't   any   other  way,"   said   Ellen.     Then 

396 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

she  looked  up  into  his  face  with  a  brave  innocence  of 
confession  like  a  child.  "It  hurts  me,  too,"  said  she. 

Robert  had  her  in  his  arms,  and  was  covering  her 
face  with  kisses.  "You  darling,"  he  whispered.  "It 
shall  not  be  long.  Something  will  happen.  We  can 
not  live  so.  We  will  let  it  go  so  a  little  while,  but  some 
thing  will  turn  up.  I  shall  have  a  more  responsible 
place  and  a  larger  salary,  then — " 

"Do  you  think  I  will  let  you?"  asked  Ellen,  with  a 
great  blush. 

"  I  will,  whether  you  will  let  me  or  not,"  cried  Robert; 
and  at  that  moment  he  felt  inclined  to  marry  the  entire 
Brewster  family  rather  than  give  up  this  girl. 

However,  as  he  went  home,  walking  that  he  might 
think  the  better,  he  had  to  confess  to  himself  that  the 
girl  was  right ;  that,  as  matters  were,  anything  definite 
was  out  of  the  question.  He  had  to  admit  that  it  might 
be  a  matter  of  years. 


CHAPTER    XL 

WHEN  Ellen  had  been  at  work  in  the  factory  a  year, 
she  was  running  a  machine  and  working  by  the  piece, 
and  earning  on  an  average  eighteen  dollars  a  week.  Of 
course  that  was  an  unusual  advance  for  a  girl,  but  Ellen 
was  herself  unusual.  She  came  to  work  in  those  days 
with  such  swiftness  and  unswerving  accuracy  that  she 
seemed  fairly  a  part  of  the  great  system  of  labor  itself. 
While  she  was  at  her  machine,  her  very  individuality 
seemed  lost ;  she  became  an  integral  part  of  a  system. 

"She's  one  of  the  best  hands  we  ever  had,"  Flynn 
told  Norman  Lloyd  one  day. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  that,"  Lloyd  responded,  smiling 
with  that  peculiar  smile  of  his  which  was  like  a  cold 
flash  of  steel. 

"Curse  him,  he  thinks  no  more  of  anybody  in  this 
shop  than  he  does  of  the  machine  they  work/'  Flynn 
thought  as  he  watched  the  proprietor  walking  with  his 
stately  descent  down  the  stairs.  The  noon  whistle 
was  blowing,  and  the  younger  Lloyd  went  leaping  down 
the  stairs  and  joined  his  uncle,  then  the  two  walked 
down  the  street,  away  from  the  factory.  The  factory 
at  that  time  of  year  began  to  present,  in  spite  of  its 
crude  architecture,  quite  a  charming  appearance,  from 
the  luxuriant  vines  which  covered  it  and  were  beginning 
to  get  autumnal  tints  of  red  and  russet.  All  the  front 
of  Lloyd's  was  covered  with  vines,  which  had  grown 
with  amazing  swiftness.  Mrs.  Lloyd  often  used  to 
look  at  them  and  reflect  upon  them  with  complacency. 

"I  should  think  it  would  make  it  pleasanter  for  the 

398 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

men  to  work  in  the  factory,  when  it  looks  so  pretty  and 
green/'  she  told  her  husband  one  of  the  hottest  days 
of  the  preceding  summer.  As  she  spoke  she  compressed 
her  lips  in  a  way  which  was  becoming  habitual  to  her. 
It  meant  the  endurance  of  a  sharp  stab  of  vital  pain. 
There  was  a  terrible  pathos  in  the  poor  woman's  ap 
pearance  at  that  time.  She  still  kept  about.  Her  mal 
ady  did  not  seem  to  be  on  the  increase,  but  it  endured. 
Her  form  had  changed  indescribably.  She  had  not 
lost  flesh,  but  she  had  a  curious,  distorted  look,  and  one 
on  seeing  her  had  a  bewildered  feeling,  and  looked  again 
to  be  sure  that  he  had  seen  aright.  Her  ghastly  pallor 
she  concealed  in  a  manner  which  she  thought  distinctly 
sinful.  She  painted  and  powdered.  She  did  not  dare 
purchase  openly  the  concoctions  which  were  used  for 
improving  her  complexion,  but  she  went  to  a  manicure 
and  invested  in  a  colored  salve  for  her  finger-nails. 
This,  with  rather  surprising  skill  for  such  a  conscience- 
pricked  tyro,  she  applied  to  the  pale  curves  of  her  cheeks 
and  her  blue  lips.  She  took  more  pains  than  ever  be 
fore  with  her  dress,  and  it  was  all  to  deceive  her  hus 
band,  that  he  should  not  be  annoyed.  She  felt  a  des 
perate  shame  because  of  her  illness ;  she  felt  it  to  be  a 
direct  personal  injury  to  this  masculine  power  which 
had  been  set  over  her  gentle  femininity.  It  was  not 
so  much  because  she  was  afraid  of  losing  his  affection 
that  she  concealed  her  affliction  from  him,  as  because 
she  felt  that  the  affliction  itself  was  somehow  an  act 
of  disloyalty.  Her  terrible  malady  had  in  a  way  af 
fected  her  reasoning  powers,  so  that  they  had  become 
distorted  by  a  monstrous  growth  of  suffering,  like  her 
body.  She  would  not  give  up  going  about  as  usual, 
and  was  never  absent  from  church.  She  drove  about 
with  her  husband  in  his  smart  trap.  Twice  she  had 
gone  with  Robert  to  consult  the  New  York  specialist, 
taking  times  when  Norman  was  away  on  business. 

399 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

She  still  would  not  consent  to  an  operation,  and  lately 
the  specialist  had  been  lukewarm  in  advising  it.  He 
had  indeed  been  doubtful  from  the  first. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  treated  Robert  with  a  soft  affection  which 
was  almost  like  that  of  a  mother.  One  night,  when  he 
returned  late  from  a  call  on  Ellen,  she  sat  up  waiting 
for  him.  He  had  not  called  on  Ellen  before  for  several 
months,  and  it  was  nearly  midnight  when  he  returned. 

"Why, Aunt  Lizzie,  are  you  up?"  he  cried,  as  he  en 
tered  the  library  door  and  saw  his  aunt's  figure,  clad 
in  shining  black  satin,  gleaming  with  jet,  in  the 
depths  of  an  easy-chair. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  looked  up  at  him  with  an  expression  of  pa 
tient  suffering.  "  I  couldn't  go  to  sleep  if  I  went  to  bed, 
Robert,"  she  replied,  in  a  hushed  voice.  She  found  it  a 
comfort  sometimes  to  confess  her  pain  to  him.  Robert 
went  over  to  her,  and  drew  her  large,  crinkled,  blond 
head  to  his  shoulder  as  if  she  had  been  a  child. 

"Poor  thing,"  he  whispered,  stroking  her  face  piti 
fully.  "Is  it  very  terrible?"  he  asked,  with  his  lips 
close  to  her  ear. 

"Terrible,"  she  whispered  back.  "Oh,  Robert,  you 
do  not  know;  pray  God  you  may  never  know." 

"  I  wish  to  God  I  could  bear  it  for  you,  Aunt  Lizzie," 
Robert  said,  fervently. 

"Oh,  hush!  If  you  or  Norman  had  to  bear  anything 
like  this,  I  should  curse  God  and  die,"  she  answered, 
and  she  shut  her  mouth  hard,  and  her  whole  face  was 
indicative  of  a  repressed  shriek. 

"  Aunt  Lizzie,  don't  you  think  you  ought  to  go  to 
New  York,  that  you  ought —  '  Robert  began,  but  she 
stopped  him  with  an  almost  fierce  peremptoriness. 
"Robert  Lloyd,  I  have  trusted  you,"  she  said.  "For 
God's  sake,  don't  forsake  me.  Don't  say  a  word  to  me 
about  that ;  when  I  can  I  will.  It  means  my  death,  any 
how.  Dr.  Evarts  thought  so ;  you  can't  deny  it." 

400 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"I  think  he  thought  there  was  a  chance,  Aunt 
Lizzie/'  Robert  returned,  but  he  said  it  faintly. 

"You  can't  cheat  me,"  replied  Mrs.  Lloyd.  "I 
know."  She  had  a  lapse  from  pain,  and  her  features 
began  to  assume  their  natural  expression.  She  looked 
at  him  almost  smiling,  and  as  if  she  turned  her  back 
upon  her  own  misery.  "  Where  have  you  been,  Rob 
ert?"  she  asked. 

Robert  colored  a  little,  but  he  answered  directly 
enough.  "  I  have  been  to  make  a  call  on  Miss  Brew- 
ster,"  he  said. 

"  You  don't  go  there  very  often,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd. 

"No,  not  very  often." 

"She's  a  beautiful  girl,  as  beautiful  a  girl  as  I  ever 
laid  eyes  on,  if  she  does  work  in  the  shop,"  said 
Mrs.  Lloyd,  "and  she's  a  good  girl,  too;  I  know 
she  is.  She  was  the  sweetest  little  thing  when  she 
was  a  child,  and  she  'ain't  altered  a  mite!"  Then 
Mrs.  Lloyd  looked  with  a  sort  of  wistful  curiosity  at 
Robert. 

"  I  think  it  is  all  true,  what  you  say,  Aunt  Lizzie," 
replied  Robert. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  continued  to  look  at  him  with  that  wistful 
scrutiny. 

"Robert,"  she  began,  then  she  hesitated. 

"What,  Aunt  Lizzie?" 

"If — ever  you  wanted  to  marry  that  girl,  I  don't 
see  any  reason  why  you  shouldn't,  for  my  part." 

Robert  pulled  a  chair  close  to  his  aunt,  and  sat  down 
beside  her,  still  holding  her  hand. 

"  I've  a  good  mind  to  tell  you  the  whole  story,  Aunt 
Lizzie,"  he  said. 

"I  wish  you  would,  Robert.  You  know  I  think  as 
much  of  you  as  if  you  were  my  own  son,  and  I  won't 
tell  anybody,  not  even  your  uncle,  if  you  don't  want 
me  to." 

2c  401 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Well,  then,  it  is  all  in  a  nutshell,"  said  Robert. 
"I  like  her,  you  know,  and  I  think  I  have  ever  since 
I  saw  her  in  her  little  white  gown  at  the  high-school 
exhibition." 

"Wasn't  she  sweet?"  said  his  aunt. 

"And  she  likes  me,  too,  I  think." 

"Of  course  she  does." 

"But  you  know  what  my  salary  is,  and  her  whole 
family  is  in  a  measure  dependent  upon  her." 

"Hasn't  her  father  got  work?" 

"No." 

"  I'll  speak  to  Norman,"  cried  Mrs.  Lloyd,  quickly. 
"I  know  he  would  do  it  for  me." 

"  But  even  then,  Aunt  Lizzie,  there  is  the  aunt  in  the 
asylum,  and  the  child,  and — " 

"Your  uncle  will  pay  you  more." 

"It  isn't  altogether  that;  in  fact,  it  isn't  that  at  all 
which  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  difficulty.  The  difficulty 
is  with  Ellen  herself.  She  will  never  consent  to  my 
marrying  her,  and  having  to  support  her  family,  while 
matters  are  as  now.  You  don't  know  how  proud  she 
is,  Aunt  Lizzie." 

"She  is  a  splendid  girl." 

"  As  far  as  I  am  concerned  I  would  marry  the  whole 
lot  on  a  little  more  than  I  have  now,  but  she  would  not 
let  me  do  it.  There's  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait." 

"Perhaps  the  aunt  will  get  well  and  her  husband 
will  come  back;  and  I  will  see,  anyway,  if  Norman 
won't  give  her  father  work,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd. 

"I  think  you  had  better  not,  Aunt  Lizzie." 

"Why  not,  Robert?" 

"There  are  reasons  why  I  think  you  had  better  not." 
Robert  would  not  tell  her  that  Ellen  had  begged  him  not 
to  use  any  influence  of  his  to  get  her  father  work. 

"After  the  way  father  has  been  turned  off,  I  can't 
stand  it,"  she  had  said,  with  a  sort  of  angry  dignity 

402 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

which  was  unusual  to  her.  In  fact,  her  father  himself 
had  begged  her  not  to  make  use  of  Robert  in  any  way 
for  his  own  advancement. 

"If  they  don't  want  me  for  my  work,  I  don't  want  to 
crawl  in  because  the  nephew  of  the  boss  likes  my  daugh 
ter/'  he  had  said.  This  speech  was  fairly  rough  for 
him,  but  Ellen  had  understood. 

"I  know  what  you  mean,  father,"  she  said. 

"I'd  rather  work  in  the  road/'  said  Andrew.  That 
autumn  he  was  getting  jobs  of  clearing  up  yards  of 
fallen  leaves,  and  gathering  feed-corn  and  pumpkins, 
and  earning  a  pittance.  Fanny  continued  to  work  on 
her  wrappers.  "  It's  a  mercy  wrappers  don't  go  out  of 
fashion,"  she  often  said. 

"I  suppose  things  that  folks  can  get  for  nothing 
ain't  so  apt  to  go  out  of  fashion,"  Andrew  retorted, 
bitterly.  He  hated  the  wrappers  with  a  deadly  hatred. 
He  hated  the  sight  of  the  limp  row  of  them  on  his  bed 
room  wall.  Nobody  knew  how  the  family  pinched  and 
screwed  in  those  days. 

They  were  using  the  small  fund  which  they  secured 
from  the  house  mortgage,  Ellen's  earnings,  and  Fanny's 
and  Andrew's,  and  every  cent  had  to  be  counted,  but 
there  was  something  splendid  in  their  loyalty  to  poor 
Eva  in  the  asylum.  The  thought  of  deserting  her  in 
her  extremity  never  occurred  to  them. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  spoke  of  her  that  night,  when  she  and 
Robert  were  talking  together  in  the  library. 

"  They  are  good  folks,  to  keep  on  doing  for  that  poor 
woman  in  the  asylum,"  she  said. 

"  They  would  never  desert  a  dog  that  belonged  to 
them,"  Robert  answered,  fervently.  "I  tell  you  that 
trait  is  worth  a  good  many  others,  Aunt  Lizzie." 

"  I  guess  it  is,"  said  his  aunt.  Then  another  parox 
ysm  of  pain  seized  her.  She  looked  at  Robert  with  a 
convulsed,  speechless  face.  He  held  her  hands  more 

403 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

tightly,  his  own  face  contracting  in  sympathy,  and 
watched  his  aunt  with  a  sort  of  angry  helplessness. 
But  he  felt  as  if  he  wanted  to  fight  something  for  the 
sake  of  this  poor,  oppressed,  innocent  creature ;  indeed, 
he  felt  fairly  blasphemous.  But  this  time  the  pain 
passed  quickly,  and  Mrs.  Lloyd  looked  at  her  nephew 
with  an  expression  of  relief  and  gentleness  which  was 
almost  angelic.  When  the  pain  was  over  she  thought 
again  of  the  Brewsters,  and  how  they  would  not  have 
forsaken  her  in  her  misery,  had  she  belonged  to  them, 
any  more  than  they  had  forsaken  the  insane  aunt. 

"They  are  good  folks,"  said  she,  "and  that  is  the 
main  thing.  That  is  the  main  thing  to  consider  when 
you  are  marrying  into  a  family,  Robert.  It  is  more  than 
riches  and  position.  The  power  they've  got  of  loving 
and  standing  by  each  other  is  worth  more  than  any 
thing  else." 

"You  are  right,  Aunt  Lizzie,  I  guess  there's  no  doubt 
of  that,"  said  Robert. 

"And  that  girl's  beautiful,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd.  She 
gazed  at  the  young  man  with  a  delicate  understanding 
and  sympathy  which  was  almost  beyond  that  of  a 
sweetheart.  Robert  felt  as  if  a  soft  hand  of  tenderness 
and  blessing  were  laid  on  his  inmost  heart.  He  looked 
at  her  like  a  grateful  child. 

"  There  isn't  anybody  like  her,  is  there,  Aunt  Lizzie?" 
he  asked. 

"No,  I  don't  think  there  is,  dear  boy,"  said  Mrs. 
Lloyd.  "  I  do  think  she  is  the  sweetest  little  thing  I 
ever  saw  in  my  life." 

Robert  brought  his  aunt's  hand  to  his  lips  and  kissed 
it.  It  seemed  to  him  for  a  minute  as  if  the  love  and 
sympathy  of  this  martyr  were  almost  more  precious 
than  the  love  of  Ellen  herself. 

He  realized  when  he  was  in  his  own  room,  and  the 
house  was  quiet,  how  much  he  loved  his  aunt,  and 

404 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

how  hard  her  pain  and  probably  inevitable  doom 
were  for  him  to  bear.  Then  something  came  to  him 
which  he  had  never  felt  before — a  great,  burning  anx 
iety  and  tenderness  and  terror  over  Ellen,  because  she 
was  of  the  weaker  half  of  creation,  which  is  born  to  the 
larger  share  of  pain  in  the  world.  He  felt  that  he  would 
almost  have  given  her  up,  yielded  up  forever  all  his 
delight  in  her,  to  spare  her;  for  the  pain  of  knighthood, 
which  is  in  every  true  lover,  awoke  in  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

NAHUM  BEALS  was  a  laster  in  Lloyd's.  Late  in 
the  autumn,  when  Ellen  had  been  in  the  factory  a  little 
over  a  year,  there  began  to  be  a  subtle  condition  of  dis 
content  and  insubordination.  Men  gathered  in  mut 
tering  groups,  of  which  Nahum  Beals  seemed  always 
to  be  the  nucleus.  His  high,  rampant  voice,  restrained 
by  no  fear  of  consequences,  alwaj^s  served  as  the  key 
note  to  the  chorus  of  rebellion.  Ellen  paid  little  at 
tention  to  it.  She  was  earning  good  wages,  and  per 
sonally  she  had  nothing  of  which  to  complain.  She 
had  come  to  regard  Beals  as  something  of  a  chronic 
fanatic,  but  as  she  knew  that  the  lasters  were  fairly  paid, 
she  had  not  supposed  it  meant  anything.  However, 
one  night,  going  home  from  the  factory,  her  eyes  were 
opened.  Abby  and  Maria  Atkins  and  Mamie  Brady 
were  with  her,  and  shortly  after  they  had  left  the  shop 
Abby  stopped  Granville  Joy,  Frank  Dixon,  and  Willy 
Jones,  who  with  another  young  man  were  swinging 
past  without  noticing  the  girls,  strange  to  say.  Abby 
caught  Joy  by  the  arm. 

"  Hold  on  a  minute,  Granville  Joy/'  said  she.  "  I 
want  to  know  what's  up  with  the  lasters." 

Granville  laughed,  with  an  uneasy,  sidelong,  dep 
recating  glance  at  Ellen.  "  Oh,  nothing  much,"  said  he. 

Willy  Jones  stood  still,  coloring,  gazing  at  Abby 
with  a  half  -  terrified  expression.  Dixon  walked  on, 
and  the  other  young  man,  Amos  Lee,  who  was  dark 
and  slight  and  sinewy,  stared  from  one  to  the  other 
with  quick  flashes  of  black  eyes.  He  looked  almost 

406 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

as  if  he  had  gypsy  blood  in  him,  and  he  came  of  a  family 
which  was  further  on  the  outskirts  of  society  than  the 
Louds  had  been. 

When  Granville  replied  "nothing  much"  to  Abby's 
question,  Amos  Lee  frowned  with  a  swift  contraction 
of  dissent,  but  did  not  speak  until  Abby  had  retorted. 
"You  needn't  talk  that  way  to  me,  Granville  Joy," 
said  she.  "You  can't  cheat  me.  I  know  something's 
up." 

"It  ain't  nothin',  Abby,"  said  Granville,  but  it  was 
quite  evident  that  he  was  lying. 

Then  Lee  spoke  up,  in  a  sudden  fury  of  enthusiasm. 
"There  is  somethin'  up,"  said  he,  "and  I  don't  care  if 
you  do  know  it.  There's — "  he  stopped  as  Granville 
clutched  his  arm  violently  and  whispered  something. 

"  Well,  maybe  you're  right,"  said  Lee  to  Joy.  "  Look 
here,"  he  continued  to  Abby,  "you  and  Ellen  come 
along  here  a  little  ways,  and  I'll  tell  you." 

After  Maria  and  Mamie  had  passed  on,  Joy  and 
Jones  and  Lee,  standing  close  to  the  two  girls,  began 
to  talk,  Lee  leading. 

"  Well,  look  here,"  he  said,  in  a  hushed  voice.  "  We've 
found  out — no  matter  how,  but  we've  found  out — that 
the  boss  is  goin'  to  dock  the  lasters'  pay." 

"How  much?"  asked  Abby. 

"Fifteen  per  cent." 

"Good  Lord!"  said  Abby. 

"  We  ain't  going  to  stand  it,"  said  Lee. 

"  I  don't  see  how  we  can  stand  it,"  said  Willy  Jones, 
with  a  slightly  interrogative  tone  directed  towards 
Abby.  Granville  looked  at  Ellen. 

"  Are  you  sure?"  she  asked. 

"Perfectly  sure,"  replied  Granville.  "What  do  you 
think  about  it,  Ellen?" 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Ellen,  thought 
fully. 

407 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Strike  for  fifteen  per  cent,  more  before  he  has  a 
chance  to  dock  us,"  cried  Lee,  with  a  hushed  vehemence, 
looking  about  warily  to  make  sure  that  no  one  over 
heard. 

"  The  worst  of  it  is,  I  know  it  all  comes  from  Nahum 
Beals,  and  he's  half  cracked,"  said  Abby,  bluntly. 

"He's  got  the  right  of  it,  anyhow,"  said  Lee. 

The  two  girls  walked  on,  while  the  men  lingered 
behind  to  talk. 

"Do  you  suppose  it  is  true,  Abby?"  asked  Ellen. 

"I  don't  know.  I  should,  if  it  wasn't  for  that  Lee 
fellow.  I  can't  bear  him.  And  that  Nahum  Beals,  I 
believe  he's  half  mad." 

"I  feel  the  same  way  about  him,"  said  Ellen;  "but 
think  what  it  would  mean,  fifteen  per  cent,  less  on  their 
wages." 

"  It  doesn't  mean  so  much  for  those  young  fellows, 
except  Willy  Jones;  he's  got  enough  on  his  shoulders." 

"No,  but  ever  so  many  of  the  lasters  have  large 
families." 

"I  hope  they  don't  drag  Willy  Jones  into  it,"  said 
Abby.  She  looked  back  as  she  spoke.  Willy,  in  the 
little  knot  of  men,  was  looking  after  her,  and  their 
eyes  met.  Abby  colored. 

"  It's  a  shame  to  dock  his  wages,"  she  said. 

"Whose— Willy  Jones's?" 

"Yes.  I  hope  he  won't  get  into  any  trouble.  I  can't 
bear  that  Lee." 

"Still,  to  dock  their  wages  fifteen  per  cent./'  said 
Ellen,  thoughtfully. 

"What  right  has  Mr.  Lloyd?" 

"  I  suppose  he'd  say  he  has  the  right  because  he  has 
the  capital." 

"I  don't  see  why  that  gives  him  the  right." 

"  You'd  better  go  and  talk  to  him,"  said  Abby.  "  As 
for  me,  I  made  up  my  mind  when  I  went  to  work  in 

408 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  shop  that  I'd  got  to  be  a  bond-slave,  all  but  my 
soul.  That  can  kick  free,  thank  the  Lord." 

"I  didn't  make  up  my  mind  to  it/'  said  Ellen.  "I 
am  not  going  to  be  a  slave  in  any  way,  and  I  am  not 
going  to  approve  of  others  being  slaves." 

"You  think  they  ought  to  strike?" 

"  Yes,  if  it  is  true  that  Mr.  Lloyd  is  going  to  dock 
their  wages,  but  I  don't  feel  sure  that  it  is  true.  Mr. 
Beals  is  a  queer  man.  Sometimes  I  have  thought  he 
was  dangerous." 


CHAPTER  XLII 

TUESDAY  evening  was  one  of  those  marvellously 
clear  atmospheres  of  autumn  which  seem  to  be  clearer 
from  the  contrast  to  the  mists  of  the  recent  summer. 
The  stars  swarmed  out  in  unnumbered  hosts. 

"  Seems  to  me  I  never  saw  so  many  stars,"  one  would 
say  to  another.  The  air  had  the  sharp  cleave  of  the 
frost  in  it.  Everything  was  glittering  with  a  white 
rime — the  house  roofs,  and  the  levels  of  fields  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  little  city. 

Ellen  had  an  errand  down-town  that  evening,  and 
she  wrapped  herself  up  warmly,  putting  on  a  fur  collar 
which  she  had  not  worn  since  the  winter  before.  She 
felt  strangely  nervous  and  disturbed  as  she  set  out. 

"Don't  you  want  your  father  to  go  with  you?"  asked 
Fanny,  for  in  some  occult  fashion  the  girl's  perturba 
tion  seemed  to  be  communicated  to  her.  She  followed 
her  to  the  door. 

"Seems  kind  of  lonesome  for  you  to  go  alone,"  she 
said,  anxiously. 

"  As  if  I  minded !  Why,  it  is  as  bright  as  day  with 
the  electric-lights,  and  there  are  houses  almost  all  the 
way,"  laughed  Ellen. 

"Your  father  could  go  with  you,  or  he  could  go  for 
you." 

"No,  he  couldn't  go  for  me.  I  want  to  get  one  of 
the  new  catalogues  at  the  library  and  pick  out  a  book, 
and  there  is  no  ssnse  in  dragging  father  out.  He  has 
a  cold,  too.  Why,  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  to  be 
afraid  of,  mother." 

410 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Well,  don't  be  any  longer  than  you  can  help/'  said 
Fanny. 

Ellen,  as  she  passed  her  grandmother's  house,  saw 
a  curtain  drawn  with  a  quick  motion.  That  happened 
nearly  every  time  she  passed.  She  knew  that  the  old 
woman  was  alwaj's  on  the  lookout  for  her,  and  always 
bent  on  concealing  it.  Mrs.  Zelotes  never  went  into  her 
son's  house,  and  never  spoke  to  Ellen  in  those  days. 
She  had  aged  rapidly  during  the  past  year,  and  even 
her  erect  carriage  had  failed  her.  She  stooped  rigidly 
when  she  walked.  She  was  fairly  racked  with  love 
and  hatred  of  Ellen.  She  adored  her,  she  could  have 
kissed  the  ground  she  walked  on,  and  yet  she  was  so 
full  of  wrath  against  her  for  thwarting  her  hopes  for  her 
own  advancement  that  she  was  conscious  of  cruel  im 
pulses  in  her  direction. 

Ellen  walked  along  rapidly  under  the  vast  canopy 
of  stars,  about  which  she  presently  began  to  have  a 
singular  impression.  She  felt  as  if  they  were  being 
augmented,  swelled  as  if  by  constantly  oncoming  legions 
of  light  from  the  space  beyond  space,  and  as  if  her 
little  space  of  individuality,  her  tiny  foothold  of  crea 
tion,  was  being  constantly  narrowed  by  them. 

"I  never  saw  so  many  stars,"  she  said  to  herself. 
She  looked  with  wonder  at  the  Milky  Way,  which  was 
like  a  zone  of  diamond  dust.  Suddenly  a  mighty  con 
viction  of  God,  which  was  like  the  blazing  forth  of  a 
new  star,  was  in  her  soul.  Ellen  was  not  in  a  sense 
religious,  and  had  never  united  with  the  Congrega 
tional  Church,  which  she  had  always  attended  with 
her  parents;  she  had  never  been  responsive  to  efforts 
made  towards  her  so-called  conversion,  but  all  at  once, 
under  the  stars  that  night,  she  told  herself  with  an 
absolute  certainty  of  the  truth  of  it.  "  There  is  some 
thing  beyond  everything,  beyond  the  stars,  and  be 
yond  all  poor  men,  and  beyond  me,  which  is  enough 

411 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

for  all  needs.  We  shall  have  our  portion  in  the 
end." 

She  had  been  feeling  discouraged  lately,  although 
she  would  not  own  it  even  to  herself.  She  saw  Robert 
but  seldom,  and  her  aunt  was  no  better.  She  often 
wondered  if  there  could  be  anything  before  her  but  that 
one  track  of  drudgery  for  daily  bread  upon  which  she 
had  set  out.  She  wondered  if  she  ought  not  to  say 
positively  to  Robert  that  there  must  be  no  thought  of 
anything  between  them  in  the  future.  She  wondered 
if  she  were  not  wronging  him.  Once  or  twice  she  had 
seen  him  riding  with  Miss  Hemingway,  and  thought 
that,  after  all,  that  was  a  girl  better  suited  to  him,  and 
perhaps  if  he  had  no  hope  whatever  of  her  he  might 
turn  to  the  other  to  his  own  advantage.  But  to-night, 
with  the  clear  stimulus  of  the  frost  in  her  lungs,  and 
her  eyes  and  soul  dazzled  with  the  multiplicity  of  stars, 
she  began  to  have  a  great  impetus  of  courage,  like  a 
soldier  on  the  morning  of  battle.  She  felt  as  if  she  could 
fight  for  her  joy  and  the  joy  of  others,  and  victory  would 
in  the  end  be  certain;  that  the  chances  of  victory  ran 
to  infinity,  and  could  not  be  measured. 

However,  all  the  while,  in  spite  of  her  stimulation 
of  spirits,  there  was  that  vague  sense  of  excitement,  as 
over  some  impending  crisis.  That  she  could  not  throw 
off.  Suddenly  she  found  herself  searching  the  road 
ahead  of  her,  and  often  turning  at  the  fancied  sound  of 
a  footstep.  She  began  to  wish  that  her  father  had 
come  with  her;  then  she  told  herself  how  foolish  she 
was,  for  he  had  a  cold,  and  this  keen  air  would  have 
been  sure  to  give  him  more.  The  electric-car  passed 
her,  and  she  had  a  grateful  sense  of  companionship. 
She  looked  after  its  diminishing  light  in  the  distance, 
and  almost  wished  that  she  had  stopped  it,  but  car-fares 
had  to  be  counted  carefully. 

She  began  to  dread  unspeakably  passing  the  factories. 

412 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

She  told  herself  that  there  was  no  sense  in  it,  that  it  was 
not  late,  that  the  electric-light  made  it  like  high  noon, 
that  there  was  a  watchman  in  each  building,  that  there 
was  nothing  whatever  to  fear;  but  it  was  in  vain.  It 
was  only  by  a  great  effort  of  her  will  that  she  did  not 
turn  and  go  back  home  when  she  reached  Lloyd's. 

Lloyd's  came  first;  then,  a  few  rods  farther,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  McGuire's,  and  then  Briggs's. 

Ellen  had  a  library  book  under  her  arm,  and  she 
clutched  her  dress  -  skirt  firmly.  A  terror  as  to  the 
supernatural  was  stealing  over  her.  She  felt  as  she 
had  when  waking  in  the  night  from  some  dreadful 
dream,  though  all  the  time  she  was  dinning  in  her 
ears  how  foolish  she  was.  She  saw  the  lantern  of 
the  night-watchman  in  Lloyd's  moving  down  a  stair 
which  crossed  a  window. 

She  came  opposite  Lloyd's,  and,  just  as  she  did  so, 
saw  a  dark  figure  descending  the  right-hand  flight  of 
stairs  from  the  entrance  platform.  She  thought,  from 
something  in  the  carriage,  that  it  was  Mr.  Lloyd,  and 
hung  back  a  little,  reflecting  that  she  would  keep  be 
hind  him  all  the  way  to  town. 

The  man  reached  the  ground  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
then  there  was  a  flash  of  fire  from  the  shadow  under 
neath,  and  a  shot  rang  out.  Ellen  did  what  she  could 
never  have  counted  upon  herself  for  doing.  She  ran 
straight  towards  the  man,  who  had  fallen  prostrate  like 
a  log,  and  was  down  on  the  ground  beside  him,  with 
his  head  on  her  lap,  shouting  for  the  night-watchman, 
whose  name  was  McLaughlin. 

"  McLaughlin ! "  she  shouted.  But  there  was  no 
need  of  it,  for  he  had  heard  the  shot.  The  cry  had 
not  left  Ellen's  lips  before  she  was  surrounded  by  men, 
one  of  whom  was  Granville  Joy,  one  was  Dixon,  and 
one  was  John  Sargent. 

Joy  and  Sargent  had  met  down-town,  and  were  walk- 
4^3 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ing  home  together,  when  the  shot  rang  out,  and  they 
had  rushed  forward.  Then  there  was  McLaughlin, 
the  watchman  of  Lloyd's,  and  the  two  watchmen  from 
Briggs's  and  McGuire's  came  pelting  down  their  stairs, 
swinging  their  lanterns. 

They  all  stood  around  the  wounded  man  and  Ellen, 
and  stared  for  a  second.  They  were  half  stupefied. 

"My  God!  this  is  a  bad  job,"  said  Dixon. 

"Go  for  a  doctor,"  cried  Ellen,  hoarsely. 

"  We're  a  pack  of  fools,"  ejaculated  Sargent,  suddenly. 
Then  he  gave  Granville  Joy  a  push  on  the  back.  "  Run 
for  your  life  for  the  first  doctor,"  he  cried,  and  was  down 
on  his  knees  beside  the  wounded  man.  Lloyd  seemed 
to  be  quite  insensible.  There  was  a  dark  spot  which 
was  constantly  widening  in  a  hideous  circle  of  death 
on  his  shirt-front  when  Sargent  opened  his  coat  and 
vest  tenderly. 

"Is  he — "  whispered  Ellen.  She  held  one  of  Lloyd's 
hands  in  a  firm  clutch  as  if  she  would  in  such  wise 
hold  him  to  life. 

"No,  not  yet,"  whispered  Sargent.  Dixon  knelt 
down  on  the  other  side,  and  took  Lloyd's  other  hand 
and  felt  his  pulse.  McLaughlin  was  rushing  aimlessly 
up  and  down,  talking  as  he  went. 

"I  never  heard  a  thing  till  that  shot  came,"  he  kept 
repeating.  "He'd  jest  been  in  to  get  his  pocketbook 
he'd  left  in  the  office.  I  never  heard  a  thing  till  I 
heard  that  shot." 

Sargent  was  opening  Lloyd's  shirt.  "  McLaughlin, 
for  God's  sake  stop  talking  and  run  for  another  doctor, 
in  case  Joy  does  not  get  one  at  once,"  he  cried;  "then 
go  to  his  house,  and  tell  young  Lloyd,  but  don't  say 
anything  to  his  wife." 

"Poor  Mrs.  Lloyd,"  whispered  Ellen. 

The  sick  man  sighed  audibly.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had 
heard.  The  other  watchmen  stood  looking  on  helplessly. 

414 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"Why  in  thunder  don't  you  two  scatter,  and  see  if 
iiyou  can't  catch  him,"  cried  Dixon  to  them.  "He 
can't  be  far  off." 

But  the  words  had  no  sooner  left  his  mouth  than  up 
came  a  great  Swede  who  was  one  of  the  workmen  in 
Lloyd's,  and  he  had  Nahum  Beals  in  a  grasp  as  im 
perturbable  as  fate.  The  assassin,  even  with  the  strength 
of  his  fury  of  fanaticism,  was  as  a  reed  in  the  grasp  of 
this  Northern  giant.  The  Swede  held  him  easily,  walk 
ing  him  before  him  in  a  forced  march.  He  had  a  hand 
of  Nahum's  in  each  of  his,  and  he  compelled  Nahum's 
right  hand  to  retain  the  hold  of  the  discharged  pistol. 
There  was  something  terrible  about  the  Swede  as  he 
drew  near,  a  captor  as  unyielding  and  pitiless  as  justice 
itself.  He  was  even  smiling  with  a  smile  which  showed 
his  gums  from  ear  to  ear,  but  there  was  no  joy  in  his 
smile,  and  no  triumph.  His  blue  eyes  surveyed  them 
all  with  the  placid  content  of  achievement. 

"I  have  him,"  he  said.  "I  heard  him  shoot,  and  I 
heard  him  run,  and  I  stood  still  until  he  ran  into  my 
arms.  I  have  him." 

Nahum,  in  the  grasp  of  this  fate,  was  quivering  from 
head  to  foot,  but  not  from  fear. 

"Is  he  dead?"  he  shouted, eagerly. 

"  Hush  up,  you  murderer,"  cried  Dixon.  "  We  didn't 
want  any  such  work  as  this,  damn  you.  Keep  fast 
hold  of  him,  Olfsen." 

"I  will  keep  him  fast,"  replied  the  Swede,  smiling. 

Then  there  was  a  swift  clatter  of  wheels,  and  two 
doctors  drove  up,  and  men  came  running.  The  space 
in  front  of  Lloyd's  was  black  with  men.  Robert  Lloyd 
was  among  them.  Granville  Joy  had  met  him  on  the 
street. 

"  You'd  better  go  down  to  the  factory,  quick,"  he  had 
said,  hoarsely.  "There's  trouble  there;  your  uncle — " 

Robert  pushed  through  the  crowd,  which  made  way 
415 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

respectfully  for  him.     He  knelt  down  beside  the  wounded 
man.     "  Is  he —  '  he  whispered  to  Sargent. 

"Not  yet/'  whispered  Sargent,  "but  I'm  afraid  it's 
pretty  bad." 

"You  here?"  Robert  said  to  Ellen. 

"Yes/'  she  answered,  "I  was  passing  when  I  heard 
the  shot." 

"See  here/'  said  Robert,  "I  don't  know  but  I  am 
asking  a  good  deal,  but  will  you  get  into  Dr.  James's 
buggy,  and  let  his  man  drive  you  to  my  aunt's,  and 
you  break  it  to  her?  She  likes  you.  I  must  stay 
with  him.  I  don't  want  her  to  know  it  first  when  he  is 
brought  home." 

"  Yes,  that  will  be  the  best  way,"  said  the  other  phy 
sician,  who  was  the  one  regularly  employed  by  the 
Lloyds.  "  Some  one  must  tell  her  first,  and  if  she  knows 
this  young  lady — " 

"  I  will  go,"  said  Ellen. 

Dr.  Story  whispered  something  to  Ellen  as  she  was 
getting  into  the  buggy.  Then  Dr.  James's  man  drove 
her  away  down  the  street. 

There  was  a  little  black  mare  harnessed  to  the  buggy, 
and  she  went  with  nervous  leaps  of  speed.  When  Ellen 
reached  the  Lloyd  house  she  saw  that  it  was  blazing 
with  light.  Norman  Lloyd  was  fond  of  brilliant  light, 
and  would  have  every  room  in  his  house  illuminated 
from  garret  to  cellar. 

As  Ellen  went  up  the  stone  steps  she  saw  a  woman's 
figure  in  the  room  at  the  right,  which  moved  to  an 
attitude  of  attention  when  she  rang  the  bell. 

Before  Ellen  could  inquire  for  Mrs.  Lloyd  of  the  maid 
who  answered  her  ring  there  was  a  shrill  cry  from  the 
room  on  the  right. 

"Who  is  it?    Who  is  it?"  demanded  the  voice. 

Then,  before  Ellen  could  speak,  Mrs.  Lloyd  came  run 
ning  out. 

416 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What  is  it?"  she  said.  "Tell  me  quick.  I  know 
something  has  happened.  Tell  me  quick.  You  came 
in  Dr.  James's  buggy,  and  the  man  was  driving  fast. 
Tell  me." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Lloyd,"  said  Ellen.  Then  she  could  say 
no  more,  but  the  other  woman  knew. 

"Is  he  dead?"  she  asked,  hoarsely. 

"Oh,  no,  no,  not  dead." 

"Hurt?" 

Ellen  nodded,  trembling. 

"How?" 

"He  was  shot." 

"Who  shot  him?" 

"One  of  the  workmen.  They  have  him.  Carl  Olf- 
sen  found  him." 

"One  of  the  workmen,  when  he  has  always  been  so 
good!" 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Lloyd  seemed  to  gather  herself  to 
gether  into  the  strength  of  action. 

"Are  they  bringing  him  home?"  she  asked  Ellen,  in 
a  sharp,  decisive  voice. 

"I  think  they  must  be  by  this  time." 

"Then  I've  got  to  get  ready  for  him.     Come,  quick." 

There  was  by  that  time  a  man  and  two  women  ser 
vants  standing  near  them,  aghast.  Mrs.  Lloyd  turned 
to  the  man. 

"Go  down  to  the  drug-store  and  get  some  brandy, 
there  isn't  any  in  the  house,"  said  she ;  "  then  come  back 
as  quick  as  you  can.  Maggie,  you  see  that  there  is 
plenty  of  hot  water.  Martha,  you  and  Ellen  come  up 
stairs  with  me,  quick." 

Ellen  followed  Mrs.  Lloyd  and  the  maid  up-stairs, 
and,  before  she  knew  what  she  was  doing,  was  assisting 
to  put  the  room  in  perfect  readiness  for  the  wounded 
man.  The  maid  was  weeping  all  the  time  she  worked, 
although  she  had  never  liked  Mr.  Lloyd.  There  was 

2D  417 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

something  about  her  mistress  which  was  fairly  abnor 
mal.  She  kept  looking  at  her.  This  gentle,  soft- 
natured  woman  had  risen  above  her  own  pain  and 
grief  to  a  sublime  strength  of  misery. 

"Get  the  camphor,  quick,  Martha/'  she  said  to  the 
maid,  who  flew  out,  with  the  tears  streaming.  Ellen 
stood  on  one  side  of  the  bed,  and  Mrs.  Lloyd  on  the 
other.  Mrs.  Lloyd  had  stripped  off  the  blankets,  and 
was  pinning  the  sheet  tightly  over  the  mattress.  She 
seemed  to  know  instinctively  what  to  do. 

"  I  wish  you  would  bring  that  basin  over  here,  and 
put  it  on  the  stand,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd.  "Martha,  you 
fetch  more  towels,  and,  Maggie,  you  run  up  garret 
and  bring  down  some  of  those  old  sheets  from  the 
trunk  under  the  window,  quick." 

This  maid,  who  was  as  large  and  as  ample  as  her 
mistress,  fled  out  of  the  room  with  heavy,  noiseless  pads 
of  flat  feet. 

All  the  time  Mrs.  Lloyd  worked  she  was  evidently  list 
ening.  She  paid  no  attention  to  Ellen  except  to  direct 
her.  All  at  once  she  gave  a  great  leap  and  stood  still. 

"  They're  coming,"  said  she,  though  Ellen  had  heard 
nothing.  Ellen  went  close  to  her,  and  took  her  two  fat, 
cold  hands.  She  could  say  nothing.  Then  she  heard 
the  roll  of  carriage- wheels  in  the  street  below. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  pulled  her  hands  away  from  Ellen's  and 
went  to  the  head  of  the  stairs. 

"Bring  him  right  up  here,"  she  ordered,  in  a  loud 
voice. 

Ellen  stood  back,  and  the  struggling  procession  with 
the  prostrate  man  in  the  midst  labored  up  the  broad 
stairs. 

"Bring  him  in  here/'  said  Mrs.  Lloyd,  "and  lay 
him  on  the  bed." 

When  Lloyd  was  stretched  on  the  bed,  the  crowd 
drew  back  a  little,  and  she  bent  over  him. 

418 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Then  she  turned  with  a  sort  of  fierceness  to  the  doc 
tors. 

"Why  don't  you  do  something?"  she  demanded. 
She  raised  a  hand  with  a  repellant  gesture  towards  the 
other  men. 

"  You  had  better  go  now/'  said  she.  "  I  thank  you 
very  much.  If  there  is  anything  you  can  do,  I  will 
let  you  know." 

When  Mrs.  Lloyd  was  left  with  the  two  doctors  and 
a  young  assistant,  Robert,  and  Ellen,  she  said,  cutting 
her  words  short  as  if  she  released  every  one  from  a 
mental  grip: 

"  I  have  got  everything  ready.     Shall  I  go  out  now?" 

"I  think  you  had  better,  Mrs.  Lloyd,"  said  the  family 
physician,  pityingly.  He  went  close  to  Ellen. 

"  Can't  you  stay  with  her  a  little  while?"  he  whispered. 

Ellen  nodded. 

Then  the  physician  spoke  quite  loudly  and  cheerfully 
to  Mrs.  Lloyd. 

"  We  are  going  to  probe  for  the  ball,"  he  said.  "  We 
must  all  hope  for  the  best,  Mrs.  Lloyd." 

Mrs.  Lloyd  made  no  reply.  She  bent  again  over  her 
husband  with  a  rigid  face,  and  kissed  him  on  his  white 
lips,  then  she  went  out,  with  Ellen  following. 

Norman  Lloyd  lived  only  two  hours  after  he  was 
shot.  The  efforts  to  remove  the  ball  had  to  be  aban 
doned.  He  was  conscious  only  a  few  minutes.  He 
suddenly  began  to  look  about  him  with  comprehension. 

"Robert,"  he  said,  in  a  far-away  voice. 

Robert  stooped  closely  over  his  uncle.  The  dying 
man  looked  up  at  him  with  an  expression  which  he 
had  never  worn  in  life. 

"That  man  was  insane,"  whispered  he,  faintly. 
Then  he  added,  "Look  out  for  her,  if  she  has  to  go 
through  the  operation.  Take  care  of  her.  Make  it 
as  easy  for  her  as  you  can." 

419 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"Then  you  know,  Uncle  Norman/'  gasped  Robert. 

"  All  the  time,  but  it — pleased  her  to  think  I — did  not. 
Don't  lei  her  know  I  knew.  Take  care — " 

Then  Norman  Lloyd  relapsed  into  unconsciousness, 
and  the  whole  room  and  the  whole  house  became 
clamorous  with  his  stertorous  breathing.  Mrs.  Lloyd 
and  Ellen  came  and  stood  in  the  doorway.  The  doc 
tor  whispered  to  them.  Then  the  breathing  ceased, 
although  at  first  it  was  inconceivable  that  the  silence 
did  not  continue  to  ring  with  it,  and  Mrs.  Lloyd  came 
into  the  room. 


CHAPTER  XLHI 

WHEN  Mrs.  Lloyd  entered  the  room,  the  attention 
of  every  one  was  taken  from  the  dead  man  on  the 
bed  and  concentrated  upon  the  woman.  Dr.  Story, 
a  nervous,  intense,  elderly  man  with  a  settled  frown 
of  perplexity  over  keen  eyes,  which  he  had  gotten  from 
a  struggle  of  forty  years  with  unanswerable  problems 
of  life  and  death,  stepped  towards  her  hastily.  Robert 
pressed  close  to  her  side.  Ellen  came  behind  her, 
holding  in  a  curious,  instinctive  fashion  to  a  fold  of 
the  older  woman's  gown,  as  if  she  had  been  a  mother 
holding  back  a  child  from  a  sudden  topple  to  its  hurt. 
Everybody  expected  her  to  make  some  heart-breaking 
manifestation.  She  did  nothing.  At  that  moment  the 
sublime  unselfishness  of  the  woman,  which  was  her 
one  strength  of  character,  seemed  actually  to  spread 
itself,  as  with  wings,  before  them  all.  She  moved 
steadily,  close  to  her  husband  on  the  bed.  She  gazed 
at  that  profile  of  rigid  calmness  and  enforced  peace, 
which,  although  the  head  lay  low,  seemed  to  have  an 
effect  of  upward  motion,  as  if  it  were  cleaving  the  mys 
tery  of  space.  Mrs.  Lloyd  laid  her  hand  upon  her 
husband's  forehead;  she  felt  a  slight  incredulousness 
of  death,  because  it  was  still  warm.  She  took  his 
hands,  drew  them  softly  together,  and  folded  them 
upon  his  breast.  Then  she  turned  and  faced  them  all 
with  an  angelic  expression. 
"  He  did  not  realize  it  to  suffer  much?"  she  said 
"No,  Mrs.  Lloyd,"  replied  Dr.  Story,  quickly.  "No, 
I  assure  you  that  he  suffered  very  little." 

421 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  He  seemed  very  happy  when  he  died,  Aunt  Lizzie," 
said  Robert,  huskily. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  looked  away  from  them  all  around  the 
room.  It  was  a  magnificent  apartment.  Norman 
Lloyd  had  had  an  artistic  taste  as  well  as  wealth. 
The  furnishings  had  always  been  rather  beyond  Mrs. 
Lloyd's  appreciation,  but  she  admired  them  kindly. 
She  took  in  every  detail;  the  foam  of  rich  curtains  at 
the  great  windows,  the  cut-glass  and  silver  on  the 
dressing-table,  the  pale  softness  of  a  polar-bear  skin 
beside  the  bed,  the  lifelike  insistence  of  the  costly  pict 
ures  on  the  walls. 

"He's  gone  where  it  is  a  great  deal  more  beautiful/' 
she  said  to  them,  like  a  child.  "  He's  gone  where  there's 
better  treasures  than  these  which  he  had  here." 

They  all  looked  at  her  in  amazement.  It  actually 
seemed  as  if,  for  the  moment,  the  woman's  sole  grief 
was  over  the  loss  to  her  husband  of  those  things  which 
he  had  on  earth — the  treasures  of  his  mortal  state. 

Robert  took  hold  of  his  aunt's  arm  and  led  her,  quite 
unresisting,  from  the  room,  and  as  she  went  she  felt 
for  Ellen's  hand.  "It  is  time  she  was  home,"  she  said 
to  Robert.  "  Her  folks  will  be  worried  about  her.  She's 
been  a  real  comfort  to  me." 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Ellen  had  ever  seen  death, 
that  she  had  ever  seen  the  living  confronted  with  it. 
She  felt  as  if  a  wave  were  breaking  over  her  own  head 
as  she  clung  fast  to  Mrs.  Lloyd's  hand. 

"Sha'n't  I  stay?"  she  whispered,  pitifully,  to  her. 
"  If  I  can  send  word  to  my  mother — " 

"No,  you  dear  child/'  replied  Mrs.  Lloyd,  "you've 
done  enough,  and  you  will  have  to  be  up  early  in  the 
morning."  Then  she  checked  herself.  "I  forgot,"  said 
she  to  Robert ;  "  the  factory  will  be  closed  till  after  the 
funeral,  won't  it?" 

"Of  course  it  will,  Aunt  Lizzie." 
422 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"And  the  workmen  will  be  paid  just  the  same,  of 
course,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd.  "Now,  can't  you  take  her 
home,  Robert?" 

"Oh.  don't  mind  about  me,"  cried  Ellen. 

"You  can  have  a  horse  put  into  the  buggy,"  said 
Mrs.  Lloyd. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  leave  her  now,"  Ellen  whispered 
to  Robert.  "  Let  somebody  else  take  me — Dr.  James — " 

"  I  would  rather  you  took  her,"  said  Mrs.  Lloyd. 
"And  you  needn't  worry  about  his  leaving  me,  dear 
child;  the  doctor  will  stay  until  he  comes  back." 

As  Robert  was  finally  going  out  his  aunt  caught 
his  arm  and  looked  at  him  with  a  radiant  expression. 
"He  will  never  know  about  me  now,"  said  she,  "and  it 
won't  be  long  before  I —  Oh,  I  feel  as  if  I  had  gotten 
rid  of  my  own  death." 

She  was  filled  with  inexpressible  thankfulness  that 
she  had  herself  to  bear  what  she  had  dreaded  for  her 
husband.  "  Only  think  how  hard  it  would  have  been 
for  Norman,"  she  said  to  Cynthia,  the  next  day. 

Cynthia  looked  at  her  wronderingly.  She  could  have 
understood  this  feeling  over  a  dearly  beloved  child. 
"  You  are  a  good  woman,  Lizzie,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  of 
pitiful  respect. 

"Not  half  as  good  a  woman  as  he  was  a  man,"  re 
turned  Mrs.  Lloyd,  jealously.  "  Norman  wasn't  a  pro 
fessor,  I  know,  but  he  was  a  believer.  You  don't 
think  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  professor  in  order  to  be 
saved,  do  you,  Cynthia?" 

"  I  certainly  do  not,"  Cynthia  replied.  "  I  wish  you 
would  go  and  lie  down,  Lizzie." 

"  Oh,  I  can't.  I  wouldn't  let  anybody  do  these  things 
but  me,  for  the  whole  world."  Mrs.  Lloyd  was  arrang 
ing  flowers,  tuberoses  and  white  carnations,  in  vases, 
and  the  whole  house  was  scented  with  them.  She 
looked  ghastly,  yet  still  unconquerably  happy.  She 

423 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

had  now  no  reason  to  conceal  the  ravages  of  disease, 
and  her  color  was  something  frightful.  Still,  she  did 
not  suffer  as  much,  for  her  mind  had  overborne  her 
body  to  such  an  extent  that  she  had  the  mastery  for  the 
time,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  those  excruciating  stabs 
of  pain.  People  looked  at  her  incredulously.  They 
could  not  believe  that  she  felt  as  she  talked,  that  she 
was  as  happy  and  resigned  as  she  looked,  but  it  was  all 
true.  It  was  either  an  abnormal  state  into  which  her 
husband's  death  had  thrown  her,  or  one  too  normal 
to  be  credited.  She  looked  at  it  all  with  a  supreme 
childishness  and  simplicity.  She  simply  believed  that 
her  husband  was  in  heaven,  where  she  should  join  him  ; 
that  he  was  beyond  all  suffering  which  might  have  come 
to  him  through  her,  and  all  that  troubled  her  was  the 
one  consideration  of  his  having  been  forced  to  leave  his 
treasures  of  earth.  She  looked  at  various  things  which 
had  been  prized  by  the  dead  man,  and  found  her  chief 
comfort  in  saying  to  the  minister  or  Cynthia  or  Robert 
that  Norman  had  loved  these,  but  he  would  have  that 
which  was  infinitely  more  precious.  She  even  gazed 
out  of  the  window,  that  Tuesday  night,  and  saw  her 
nephew  driving  away  with  Ellen,  and  reflected,  with 
pain,  that  her  husband  had  been  fond  and  proud  of 
that  bay.  She  was  a  little  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what 
could  make  up  to  her  husband  for  that  in  another  world, 
but  she  succeeded,  and  evolved  from  her  own  loving 
fancy,  and  her  recollection  of  the  Old  Testament,  a 
conception  of  some  wonderful  creature,  shod  with 
thunder  and  maned  with  a  whirlwind.  Her  disease, 
and  a  drug  she  had  been  taking  of  late,  stimulated  her 
imagination  to  results  of  grotesque  pathos,  but  she 
was  comforted. 

That  night  when  they  were  alone,  Robert  turned  to 
the  girl  at  his  side  with  a  sudden  motion.  It  was  no 
time  for  love-making,  for  that  was  in  the  mind  of  neither 

424 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

jof  them,  but  the  bereavement  of  this  other  woman, 
and  the  tragedy  of  her  state,  filled  him  with  a  sort  of 
protective  pain  towards  the  girl  who  might  some  time 
have  to  suffer  through  him  the  same  loss. 

"  Are  you  all  tired  out,  dear?"  he  said,  and  passed 
jhis  free  arm  around  her  waist. 

"No,"  replied  Ellen.  Then,  since  she  was  only  a 
;girl,  and  overwrought,  having  been  through  a  severe 
;  strain,  she  broke  down,  and  began  to  cry. 

Robert  drew  her  closer,  and  she  hid  her  face  on  his 
shoulder.  "  Poor  little  girl,  it  has  been  very  hard  for 
you,"  he  whispered. 

"Oh,  don't  think  of  me,"  sobbed  Ellen.  "But  I 
can't  bear  it,  the  way  she  acts  and  looks.  It  is  sadder 
than  grief." 

"She  is  not  going  to  live  long  herself,  dear,"  said 
Robert,  in  a  stifled  voice. 

"And  he — did  not  know?" 

"  Hush !  yes ;  but  you  must  never  tell  any  one.  She 
tried  to  keep  it  from  him.  That  is  her  comfort." 

"Oh,"  said  Ellen.  She  looked  up  at  the  white  face 
of  the  young  man  bending  over  her,  and  suddenly  the 
realization  of  a  love  that  was  mightier  than  all  the 
creatures  who  came  of  it  and  all  who  followed  it  was 
over  her. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

WHEN  Ellen  did  not  return,  there  was  some  alarm 
in  the  Brewster  household.  Mrs.  Zelotes  came  over, 
finally,  in  a  quiver  of  anxiety. 

"Maybe  I  had  better  start  out  and  see  if  I  can  find 
her,"  said  Andrew. 

"  I  think  you  had  better,"  returned  his  mother.  "  She 
went  before  eight  o'clock,  and  it's  most  midnight,  and 
I've  set  at  my  window  watchin'  ever  since.  I  don't 
see  what  you've  been  thinkin'  about,  waitin'  all  this 
time.  I  guess  if  I  was  a  man  I  shouldn't  have  waited." 

"  I  think  she  may  have  gone  in  to  see  Abby  Atkins — 
it's  on  the  way — and  not  realized  how  late  it  was," 
said  Fanny,  obstinately,  but  with  a  very  white  face. 
She  drew  her  thread  through  with  a  jerk.  It  knotted, 
and  she  broke  it  off  viciously. 

"Fiddlesticks!"  said  her  mother-in-law. 

"There's  no  use  imaginin'  things,"  said  Fanny, 
angrily;  "but  I  think  myself  you'd  better  go  now, 
Andrew,  and  see  if  you  can  see  anything  of  her." 

"I'm  goin'  with  him,"  announced  Mrs.  Zelotes. 

"Now,  mother,  you'd  better  stay  where  you  be," 
said  Andrew,  putting  on  his  hat.  Then  the  door  flew 
open,  and  Amos  Lee,  who  had  seen  the  light  in  the 
windows,  and  was  burning  to  impart  the  news  of  the 
tragedy,  rushed  in. 

"Heard  what's  happened?"  he  cried  out. 

They  all  thought  of  Ellen.  "What?"  demanded 
Andrew,  in  a  terrible  voice.  Fanny  dropped  her  work 
and  stared  at  him,  with  her  chin  falling  as  if  she  were 

426 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

dying.  Mrs.  Zelotes  made  a  queer  gurgling  noise  in 
her  throat.  Lee  stared  at  them  a  second,  bewildered 
by  the  effect  of  his  own  words,  although  they  had  for 
him  such  a  tragic  import.  Andrew  caught  hold  of 
him  in  a  grasp  like  the  clamp  of  a  machine.  "  What?" 
he  demanded  again. 

"The  boss  has  been  shot,"  cried  Lee,  getting  his 
breath. 

Andrew  dropped  his  arm,  and  they  all  stared  at  him. 
Lee  went  on  fluently,  as  if  he  were  a  fakir  at  a  fair. 

"  Nahum  Beals  did  it.  The  boss  went  back  to  the 
office  to  get  his  pocketbook;  McLaughlin  saw  him; 
then  he  went  down  the  stairs;  Nahum,  he — he  fired; 
he  had  been  hidin'  underneath  the  stairs.  Carl  Olfsen 
caught  him,  and  he's  in  jail.  Your  daughter  she  was 
there  when  the  shot  came,  and  run  up  and  held  his  head. 
The  young  boss  he  sent  her  in  Dr.  James's  buggy  to 
Mrs.  Lloyd  to  break  the  news.  She  'ain't  got  home?" 

"No,"  gasped  Andrew. 

"The  boss  has  been  shot;  he's  dead  by  this  time," 
repeated  Lee.  "  Beals  did  it ;  they've  got  him."  There 
was  the  most  singular  evenness  and  impartiality  in  his 
tone,  although  he  was  evidently  strained  to  a  high 
pitch  of  excitement.  It  was  impossible  to  tell  whether 
he  exulted  in  or  was  aghast  at  the  tragedy. 

"Oh,  that  poor  woman!"  cried  Fanny. 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  they'll  do  next,"  cried  Mrs. 
Zelotes.  "I  should  call  it  pretty  work." 

"Nahum  Beals  has  acted  to  me  as  if  he  was  half 
crazy  for  some  time,"  said  Fanny. 

"No  doubt  about  it,"  said  Lee;  "but  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  he  had  to  swing." 

"It's  dreadful,"  said  Fanny.  "I  wonder  when  she's 
comin'  home." 

"  Seems  as  if  they  might  have  got  somebody  besides 
that  girl  to  have  gone  there,"  said  Mrs.  Zelotes. 

427 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"She  happened  to  be  right  on  the  spot,"  said  Lee, 
importantly. 

Andrew  seemed  speechless;  he  leaned  against  the 
mantel-shelf,  gazing  from  one  to  the  other,  breathing 
hard.  He  had  had  bitter  feelings  against  the  mur 
dered  man,  and  a  curious  sense  of  guilt  was  over  him. 
He  felt  almost  as  if  he  were  the  murderer. 

"  Andrew,  I  dun'no'  but  you'd  better  go  up  there  and 
see  if  she's  comin'  home,"  said  Fanny;  and  he  an 
swered  heavily  that  maybe  he  had  better,  when  they 
heard  wheels,  which  stopped  before  the  house. 

"They're  bringin'  her  home,"  said  Lee. 

Andrew  ran  and  threw  open  the  front  door.  He  had 
a  glimpse  of  Robert's  pale  face,  nodding  to  him  from  the 
buggy  as  he  drove  away,  and  Ellen  came  hastening 
up  the  walk. 

"Well,  Ellen,  this  is  pretty  dreadful  news,"  said  her 
father,  tremulously. 

"So  you  have  heard?" 

"Amos  Lee  has  just  come  in.  It's  a  terrible  thing, 
Ellen." 

"  Yes,  it's  terrible,"  returned  Ellen,  in  a  quick,  strained 
voice.  She  entered  the  sitting-room,  and  when  she 
met  her  mother's  anxious,  tender  eyes,  she  stood  back 
against  the  wall,  with  her  hands  to  her  face,  sobbing. 
Fanny  ran  to  her,  but  her  grandmother  was  quicker. 
She  had  her  arms  around  the  girl  before  the  mother 
had  a  chance. 

"  If  they  couldn't  get  somebody  besides  you,"  she  said, 
in  a  voice  of  intensest  love  and  anger,  "I  should  call 
it  pretty  work.  Now  you  go  straight  to  bed,  Ellen 
Brewster,  and  I'm  goin'  to  make  a  bowl  of  sage  tea,  and 
bring  it  up,  and  see  if  it  won't  quiet  your  nerves.  I 
call  it  pretty  work." 

"Yes,  you'd  better  go  to  bed,  Ellen,"  said  Andrew, 
gulping  as  if  he  were  swallowing  a  sob. 

428 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Mrs.  Zelotes  fairly  forced  Ellen  towards  the  door, 
?anny  following. 

"Don't  talk  and  wake  Amabel/'  whispered  Ellen, 
[forcing  back  her  sobs. 

"Was  he  dead  when  you  got  there,  Ellen?"  called 
jout  Lee. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  turned  back  and  looked  at  him.  "It's 
lafter  midnight,  and  time  for  you  to  be  goin'  home," 
she  said.  Then  the  three  disappeared.  Lee  grinned 
sheepishly  at  Andrew. 

"  Your  mother  is  a  stepper  of  an  old  woman,"  said  he. 

"It's  awful  news,"  said  Andrew,  soberly.  "What 
ever  anybody  may  have  felt,  nobody  expected — " 

"Of  course  they  didn't,"  retorted  Lee,  quickly. 
"  Nahum  went  a  step  too  far."  He  started  for  the 
!  door  as  he  spoke. 

"Well,  he  was  crazy,  without  any  doubt!"  said  An 
drew. 

"He'll  have  to  swing  for  it  all  the  same,"  said  Lee, 
going  out. 

"It  don't  seem  right,  if  he  wasn't  himself  when  he 
did  it." 

"Lord,  we're  all  crazy  when  it  comes  to  things  like 
that,"  returned  Lee.  Before  closing  the  door  he  flashed 
his  black  eyes  and  white  teeth  at  Andrew,  who  felt 
repelled. 

He  sat  down  beside  the  table  and  leaned  his  head  upon 
it.  To  his  fancy  all  creation  seemed  to  circle  about 
that  one  dead  man.  Mr.  Lloyd  had  been  for  years 
the  arbiter  of  his  destiny,  almost  of  his  life.  Andrew 
had  regarded  him  with  almost  feudal  loyalty  and  ad 
miration,  and  lately  with  bitter  revolt  and  hatred, 
and  now  he  was  dead.  He  felt  no  sorrow,  but  rather 
a  terrible  remorse  because  he  felt  no  sorrow.  All  the 
bitter  thoughts  which  he  had  ever  had  against  Lloyd 
seemed  to  marshal  themselves  before  him  like  an  ac- 

429 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

casing  legion  of  ghosts.  And  with  it  all  there  was  a 
sense  of  desolation,  as  if  some  force  which  had  been 
necessary  to  his  full  living  had  gone  out  of  creation. 
"It's  over  thirty  years  since  I  went  to  work  under 
him,"  Andrew  thought,  and  he  gave  a  dry  sob.  At 
that  moment  a  wonderful  pity  and  sorrow  for  the  dead 
man  seemed  to  spring  up  in  his  soul  like  a  light.  He 
felt  as  if  he  loved  him. 

Norman  Lloyd's  funeral  was  held  in  the  First  Baptist 
Church  of  Rowe.  It  was  crowded.  Mr.  Lloyd  had 
been  the  most  prominent  manufacturer  and  the  wealth 
iest  man  in  the  city.  His  employes  filled  up  a  great 
space  in  the  body  of  the  church. 

Andrew  went  with  his  mother  and  wife.  They  ar 
rived  quite  early.  When  Andrew  saw  the  employe's 
of  Lloyd's  marching  in,  he  drew  a  great  sigh.  lie 
looked  at  the  solemn  black  thing  raised  on  trestles  before 
the  pulpit  with  an  emotion  which  he  could  not  himself 
understand.  "  That  man  'ain't  treated  me  well  enough 
for  me  to  care  anything  about  him,"  he  kept  urging 
upon  himself.  "He  never  paid  any  more  attention  to 
me  than  a  gravel-stone  under  his  feet;  there  ain't  any 
reason  why  I  should  have  cared  about  him,  and  I  don't ; 
it  can't  be  that  I  do."  Yet  arguing  with  himself  in 
this  way,  he  continued  to  eye  the  casket  which  held 
his  dead  employer  with  an  unyielding  grief. 

Mrs.  Zelotes  sat  like  a  black,  draped  statue  at  the 
head  of  the  pew,  but  her  eyes  behind  her  black  veil 
were  sharply  observant.  She  missed  not  one  detail. 
She  saw  everything;  she  counted  the  wreaths  and 
bouquets  on  the  casket,  and  stored  in  her  mind,  as 
vividly  as  she  might  have  done  some  old  mourning- 
piece,  the  picture  of  the  near  relatives  advancing  up 
the  aisle. 

Mrs.  Lloyd  came  leaning  on  her  nephew's  arm,  and 

430 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

there  were  Cynthia  Lennox  and  a  distant  cousin,  an 
elderly  widow  who  had  been  summoned  to  the  house 
of  death. 

Ellen  sat  in  the  body  of  the  church,  with  the  employes 
of  Lloyd's,  between  Abby  Atkins  and  Maria.  She 
glanced  up  when  the  little  company  of  mourners  entered, 
then  cast  her  eyes  down  again  and  compressed  her 
lips.  Maria  began  to  weep  softly,  pressing  her  hand 
kerchief  to  her  eyes.  Ellen's  mother  had  begged  her 
not  to  sit  with  the  empk^e's,  but  with  her  and  her 
father  and  grandmother  in  their  own  pew,  but  the  girl 
had  refused. 

"I  must  sit  where  I  belong,"  said  she. 

"  Maybe  she  thinks  it  would  look  as  if  she  was  put 
ting  on  airs  on  account  of — "  Fanny  said  to  Andrew 
when  Ellen  had  gone  out. 

"I  guess  she's  right,"  returned  Andrew. 

The  employes  had  contributed  money  for  a  great 
floral  piece  composed  of  laurel  and  white  roses,  in 
the  shape  of  a  pillow.  Marine  Brady,  who  sat  behind 
Ellen,  leaned  over,  and  in  a  whisper  whistled  into  her 
ear. 

"Ain't  it  handsome?"  said  she.  "Can  you  see  them 
flowers  from  the  hands?" 

Ellen  nodded  impatiently.  The  great  green  and 
white  decoration  was  in  plain  view  from  her  seat,  and 
as  she  looked  at  it  she  wondered  if  it  were  a  sarcasm  or 
poetic  truth  beyond  the  scope  of  the  givers,  the  pillow 
of  laurel  and  roses,  emblematic  of  eternal  peace,  pre 
sented  by  the  hard  hands  of  labor  to  dead  capital. 

Of  course  the  tragic  circumstances  of  Norman  Lloyd's 
death  increased  the  curiosity  of  the  public.  Gradually 
the  church  became  crowded  by  a  slow  and  solemn  press 
ure.  The  aisles  were  filled.  The  air  was  heavy  with 
the  funeral  flowers.  The  minister  spoke  at  length, 
descanting  upon  the  character  of  the  deceased,  his 

431 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

uprightness  and  strict  integrity  in  business,  avoiding 
pitfalls  of  admissions  of  weaknesses  with  the  expertness 
of  a  juggler.  He  was  always  regarded  as  very  apt  at 
funerals,  never  saying  too  much  and  never  too  little. 
The  church  was  very  still,  the  whole  audience  wrapped 
in  a  solemn  hush,  until  the  minister  began  to  pray; 
then  there  was  a  general  bending  of  heads  and  devout 
screening  of  faces  with  hands.  Then  all  at  once  a 
sob  from  a  woman  sounded  from  the  rear  of  the  church. 
It  was  hysterical,  and  had  burst  from  the  restraint  of 
the  weeper.  People  turned  about  furtively. 

"Who  was  that?"  whispered  Mamie  Brady,  after  a 
prolonged  stare  over  her  shoulders  from  under  her  red 
frizzle  of  hair.  "It  ain't  any  of  the  mourners." 

Ellen  shook  her  head. 

"Do  keep  still,  Mamie  Brady,"  whispered  Abby 
Atkins. 

The  sob  came  again,  and  this  time  it  was  echoed 
from  the  pew  where  sat  the  members  of  the  dead  man's 
family.  Mrs.  Lloyd  began  weeping  convulsively.  Her 
state  of  mind  had  raised  her  above  natural  emotion, 
and  yet  her  nerves  weakly  yielded  to  it  when  given  such 
an  impetus.  She  wept  like  a  child,  and  now  and  then 
a  low  murmur  of  heart-broken  complaint  came  from 
her  lips,  and  was  heard  distinctly  over  the  church. 
Other  women  began  to  weep.  The  minister  prayed, 
and  his  words  of  comfort  seemed  like  the  air  in  a  dis 
cordant  medley  of  sorrow. 

Andrew  Brewster's  face  twitched;  he  held  his  hands 
clutched  tightly.  Fanny  was  weeping,  but  the  old 
woman  at  the  head  of  the  pew  sat  immovable. 

When  the  services  were  over,  and  the  great  concourse 
of  people  had  passed  around  the  casket  and  viewed  the 
face  of  the  dead,  with  keen,  sidewise  observation  of  the 
funeral  flowers,  Mrs.  Zelotes  pressed  out  as  fast  as  she 
was  able  without  seeming  to  crowd,  and  caught  up 

432 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

vith  Mrs.  Pointdexter,  who  had  sat  in  the  rear  of  the 
Jthurch. 

'    She  came  alongside  as  they  left  the  church,  and  the 
|;wo  old  women  moved  slowly  down  the  sidewalk,  with 
fingering  glances  at  the  funeral  procession  drawn  up 
.n  front  of  the  church. 

"Who  was  that  cryin'  so  in  back;  did  you  see?" 
fasked  Mrs.  Zelotes  of  Mrs.  Pointdexter,  whose  eyes  were 
|red,  and  whose  face  bore  an  expression  of  meek  endur 
ance  of  a  renewal  of  her  own  experience  of  sorrow. 

"It  was  Joe  Martin's  wife,"  said  she.     "I  sat  just 
behind  her." 

"What  made  her?" 

Then  both  started,  for  the  woman  who  had  sobbed 
Jtcame  up  behind  them,  her  brother,  an  elderly  man, 
trying  to  hold  her  back. 

"You  stop,  John,"  she  cried.     "I  heard  what  she 
jj  said,  and  I'm  goin'  to  tell  her.     I'm  goiri  to  tell  every- 
body.     Nobody    shall    stop    me.     There    the   minister 
H  spoke  and  spoke  and  spoke,  and  he  never  said  a  word 
ij  as  to  any  good  he'd  done.     I'm  goin'  to  tell.     I  wanted 
I  to  stan'  right  up  in  the  church  an'  tell  everybody.     He 
I  told  me  not  to  say  a  word  about  it,  an'  I  never  did 
j  whilst  he  was  livin',  but  now  I'm  goin'  to  stan'  up  for 
the  dead."     The  woman  pulled  herself  loose  from  her 
|    brother,  who  stood  behind  her,  frightened,  and  continu- 
|    ally  thrusting  out  a  black-gloved  hand  of  remonstrance. 
People  began  to  gather.     The  woman,  who  was  quite 
old,  had  a  face  graven  with  hard  lines  of  habitual  re 
straint,  which  was  now,  from  its  utter  abandon,  at  once 
pathetic  and  terrible.     She  made  a  motion  as  if  she  were 
thrusting  her  own  self  into  the  background. 

"I'm  goin'  to  speak,"  she  said,  in  a  high  voice.     "I 

held  my  tongue  for  the  livin',  but  I'm  goin'  to  speak 

for  the  dead.      My  poor  husband  died  twenty  years 

ago,  got  his  hand  cut  in  a  machine  in  Lloyd's,  and  had 

2"  433 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

lockjaw,  and  I  was  left  with  my  daughter  that  had  spi 
nal  disease,  and  my  little  boy  that  died,  and  my  owir 
health  none  too  good,  and — and  he — he — came  to  my 
house,  one  night  after  the  funeral,  and — and  told  me 
he  was  goin'  to  look  out  for  me,  and  he  has,  he  has. 
That  blessed  man  gave  me  five  dollars  every  week  of 
my  life,  and  he  buried  poor  Annie  when  she  died,  and 
my  little  boy,  and  he  made  me  promise  never  to  say  a 
word  about  it.  Five  dollars  every  week  of  my  life — 
five  dollars." 

The  woman's  voice  ended  in  a  long-drawn,  hysterical 
wail.  The  other  women  who  had  been  listening  began 
to  weep.  Mrs.  Pointdexter,  when  she  and  Mrs.  Zelotes 
moved  on,  was  sobbing  softly,  but  Mrs.  Zelotes's  face, 
though  moved,  wore  an  expression  of  stern  conjecture. 

"  I'd  like  to  know  how  many  things  like  that  Norman 
Lloyd  did,"  said  she.  "  I  never  supposed  he  was  that 
kind  of  a  man." 

She  had  a  bewildered  feeling,  as  if  she  had  to  recon 
struct  her  own  idea  of  the  dead  man  as  a  monument  to 
his  memory,  and  reconstruction  was  never  an  easy 
task  for  the  old  woman. 

434 


CHAPTER   XLV 

A  SHORT  time  after  Norman  Lloyd's  death,  Ellen, 
/hen  she  had  reached  the  factory  one  morning,  met  a 
stream  of  returning  workmen.  They  swung  along, 
land  on  their  faces  were  expressions  of  mingled  solem- 
mity  and  exultation,  as  of  children  let  out  to  play  be 
cause  of  sorrow  in  the  house,  which  will  not  brook  the 
;  jarring  inconsequence  of  youth. 

Mamie  Brady,  walking  beside  a  young  man  as  red- 
haired  as  herself,  called  out,  with  ill-repressed  glee, 
"Turn  round,  Ellen  Brewster;  there  ain't  no  shop  to 
day." 

The  young  man  at  her  side,  nervously  meagre,  looked 
at  Ellen  with  a  humorous  contortion  of  his  thin  face, 
then  he  caught  Mamie  Brady  by  the  arm,  and  swung 
her  into  a  hopity-skip  down  the  sidewalk.  Just  behind 
them  came  Granville  Joy,  with  another  man.  Ellen 
stopped.  "What  is  it?"  she  said  to  him.  "Why  is 
the  shop  closed?" 

Granville  stopped,  and  let  the  stream  of  workmen  pass 
him  and  Ellen.  They  stood  in  the  midst  of  it,  separat 
ing  it,  as  rock  will  separate  a  current.  "  Mrs.  Lloyd  is 
dead,"  Granville  replied,  soberly. 

"  I  heard  she  was  very  low  last  night,"  Ellen  return 
ed,  in  a  hushed  voice. 

Then  she  passed  Granville,  who  stood  a  second  gazing 
wistfully  after  her,  before  he  resumed  his  homeward 
way.  He  told  himself  quite  accurately  that  she  had 
purposely  refrained  from  turning,  in  order  to  avoid 
walking  with  himself.  A  certain  resentment  seized 

435 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

him.  It  seemed  to  him  that  something  besides  his  love 
had  been  slighted.  "  She  needn't  have  thought  I  was 
going  to  make  love  to  her  going  home  in  broad  daylight 
with  all  these  folks/'  he  reflected,  and  he  threw  up  his 
head  impatiently. 

The  man  with  whom  he  had  been  walking  when 
Ellen  appeared  lingered  for  him  to  rejoin  him.  "  Won 
der  how  many  shops  they'd  shut  up  for  you  and  me," 
said  the  man,  with  a  sort  of  humorous  bitterness.  He 
had  a  broad  face,  seemingly  fixed  in  an  eternal  mask 
of  laughter,  and  yet  there  were  hard  lines  in  it,  and  a 
forehead  of  relentless  judgment  overhung  his  wide  bow 
of  mouth  and  his  squat  and  wrinkled  nose. 

"Guess  not  many,"  replied  Granville,  echoing  the 
man  in  a  way  unusual  to  him. 

"And  yet  if  it  wa'n't  for  us  they  couldn't  keep  the 
shop  running  at  all,"  said  the  man,  whose  name  was 
Tom  Peel. 

"That's  so,"  said  Granville,  with  a  slight  glance  over 
his  shoulder. 

Ellen  had  met  the  Atkins  girls,  and  had  turned,  and 
was  coming  back  with  them.  It  was  as  he  had  thought. 

"If  the  new  boss  cuts  down  fifteen  per  cent.,  as  the 
talk  is,  what  be  you  goin'  to  do?"  asked  Tom  Peel. 

"I  ain't  goin'  to  stand  it,"  replied  Granville,  fiercely. 

"Ain't  goin'  to  be  swept  clean  by  the  new  broom, 
hey?"  said  the  man,  with  a  widened  grin. 

"No!"  thundered  Granville — "not  by  him,  nor  any 
one  like  him.  Damn  him!" 

Tom  Peel's  grin  widened  still  further  into  an  intense 
but  silent  laugh. 

Meantime  Ellen  was  walking  with  Abby  and  Maria. 

"  I  wonder  how  we're  going  to  get  along  with  young 
Lloyd,"  said  Abby. 

Ellen  looked  at  her  keenly.     "Why?"  she  said. 

"Oh,  I  heard  the  men  talking  the  other  night  after 

436 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

I'd  gone  to  bed.  Maybe  it  isn't  true  that  he's  thinking 
of  cutting  down  the  wages." 

"It  can't  be,"  said  Ellen. 

"I  say  so,  too,"  said  Maria. 

"Well,  I  hope  not,"  said  Abby.  "You  can't  tell. 
Some  chimneys  always  have  the  wind  whistling  in 
them,  and  I  suppose  it's  about  so  with  a  boot  and  shoe 
shop.  It  don't  follow  that  there's  going  to  be  a  hur 
ricane." 

They  had  come  to  the  entrance  of  the  street  where 
the  Atkins  sisters  lived,  and  Ellen  parted  from  them. 

She  kept  on  her  way  quite  alone.  They  had  walked 
slowly,  and  the  other  operatives  had  either  boarded 
cars  or  had  gone  out  of  sight. 

Ellen,  when  she  turned,  faced  the  northwest,  out  of 
which  a  stiff  wind  was  blowing.  She  thrust  a  hand 
up  each  jacket-sleeve,  folding  her  arms,  but  she  let  the 
fierce  wind  smite  her  full  in  the  face  without  blenching. 
She  had  a  sort  of  delight  in  facing  a  wind  like  that,  and 
her  quick  young  blood  kept  her  from  being  chilled. 
The  sidewalk  was  frozen.  There  was  no  snow,  and 
the  day  before  there  had  been  a  thaw.  One  could  see 
on  this  walk,  hardened  into  temporary  stability,  the 
footprints  of  hundreds  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  labor. 
Read  rightly,  that  sidewalk  in  the  little  manufacturing 
city  was  a  hieroglyphic  of  toil,  and  perhaps  of  toil  as 
tending  to  the  advance  of  the  whole  world.  Ellen  did 
not  think  of  that,  for  she  was  occupied  with  more  per 
sonal  considerations,  thinking  of  the  dead  woman  in 
the  great  Lloyd  house.  She  pictured  her  lying  dead  on 
that  same  bed  whereon  she  had  seen  her  husband  lie 
dead.  All  the  ghastly  concomitants  of  death  came 
to  her  mind.  "They  will  turn  off  all  that  summer 
heat,  and  leave  her  alone  in  this  freezing  cold,"  she 
thought.  She  remembered  the  sound  of  that  other 
woman's  kind  voice  in  her  ears,  and  she  saw  her  face 

437 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

when  she  told  her  the  dreadful  news  of  her  husband's 
death.  She  felt  a  sob  rising  in  her  throat,  but  forced 
it  back.  What  Abby  had  told  concerning  Mrs.  Lloyd's 
happiness  in  the  face  of  death  seemed  to  her  heart 
breaking,  though  she  knew  not  why.  That  enormous, 
almost  transcendent  trust  in  that  which  was  absolutely 
unknown  seemed  to  engulf  her. 

When  she  reached  home,  her  mother  looked  at  her 
in  astonishment.  She  was  sewing  on  the  interminable 
wrappers.  Andrew  was  paring  apples  for  pies.  "  What 
be  you  home  for — be  you  sick?"  asked  Fanny.  An 
drew  gazed  at  her  in  alarm. 

"No,  I  am  not  sick,"  replied  Ellen,  shortly.  "Mrs. 
Lloyd  is  dead,  and  the  factory's  closed." 

"I  heard  she  was  very  low — Mrs.  Jones  told  me  so 
yesterday,"  said  Fanny,  in  a  hushed  voice.  Andrew 
began  paring  another  apple.  He  was  quite  pale. 

"When  is  the  funeral  to  be,  did  you  hear?"  asked 
Fanny.  Ellen  was  hanging  up  her  hat  and  coat  in  the 
entry. 

"Day  after  to-morrow." 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  about  the  hands  sending 
flowers?" 

"No." 

"  I  suppose  they  will/'  said  Fanny,  "  as  long  as  they 
sent  one  to  him.  Well,  she  was  a  good  woman,  and  it's 
a  mark  of  respect,  and  I  'ain't  anything  to  say  against 
it,  but  I  can't  help  feeling  as  if  it  was  a  tax." 

438 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

IT  was  some  time  after  Mrs.  Lloyd's  death.  Ellen 
had  not  seen  Robert  except  as  she  had  caught  from 
time  to  time  a  passing  glimpse  of  him  in  the  factory. 
One  night  she  overheard  her  father  and  mother  talking 
about  him  after  she  had  gone  to  bed,  the  sitting-room 
door  having  been  left  ajar. 

"I  thought  he'd  come  and  call  after  his  aunt  died," 
she  heard  Fanny  say.  "  I've  always  thought  he  liked 
Ellen,  an'  here  he  is  now,  with  all  that  big  factory,  an' 
plenty  of  money." 

"Mebbe  he  will,"  replied  Andrew,  with  a  voice  in 
which  were  conflicting  emotions,  pride  and  sadness, 
and  a  struggle  for  self-renunciation. 

"It  would  be  a  splendid  thing  for  her,"  said  Fanny. 

"It  would  be  a  splendid  thing  for  him,"  returned 
Andrew,  with  a  flash. 

"  Land,  of  course  it  would !  You  needn't  be  so  smart, 
Andrew  Brewster.  I  guess  I  know  what  Ellen  is,  as 
well  as  you.  Any  man  might  be  proud  to  get  her — I 
don't  care  who — whether  he's  Robert  Lloyd,  or  who, 
but  that  don't  alter  what  I  say.  It  would  be  a  splendid 
chance  for  Ellen.  Only  think  of  that  great  Lloyd  house, 
and  it  must  be  full  of  beautiful  things — table  linen,  and 
silver,  and  what-not.  I  say  it  would  be  a  splendid  thing 
for  her,  and  she'd  be  above  want  all  her  life — that's 
something  to  be  considered  when  we  'ain't  got  any 
more  than  we  have  to  leave  her,  and  she  workin'  the 
way  she  is." 

"Yes,  that's  so,"  assented  Andrew,  with  a  heavy 
439 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

sigh,  as  of  one  who  looks  upon  life  from  under  the  mor 
tification  of  an  incubus  of  fate. 

"  We'd  ought  to  think  of  her  best  good/'  said  Fanny, 
judiciously.  "  I've  been  thinkin'  every  evening  lately 
that  he'd  be  comin'.  I've  had  the  fire  in  the  parlor  stove 
all  ready  to  touch  off,  an'  I've  kept  dusted  in  there. 
I  know  he  liked  her,  but  mebbe  he's  like  all  the  rest  of 
the  big-bugs." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Andrew,  with  an  in 
ward  qualm  of  repulsion.  He  always  hated  unspeak 
ably  to  hear  his  wife  say  "big-bugs"  in  that  tone. 
Although  he  was  far  from  being  without  humility,  he 
was  republican  to  the  core  in  his  estimate  of  his  own 
status  in  his  own  free  country.  In  his  heart,  as  long 
as  he  kept  the  law  of  God  and  man,  he  recognized  no 
"big-bugs."  It  was  one  of  the  taints  of  his  wife's  an 
cestry  which  grated  upon  him  from  time  to  time. 

"Oh,  well,  mebbe  he  don't  want  to  be  seen  callin'  on 
a  shop-girl." 

"Then  he'd  better  keep  away,  that's  all!"  cried  An 
drew,  furiously. 

"Oh,  well,  mebbe  it  ain't  so,"  said  Fanny.  "He's 
always  seemed  to  me  like  a  sensible  feller,  and  I  know 
he's  liked  Ellen,  an'  lots  of  girls  that  work  in  shops 
marry  rich.  Look  at  Annie  Graves,  married  that  fac 
tory  boss  over  to  Pemberton,  an'  has  everythin'.  She'd 
worked  in  his  factory  years.  Mebbe  it  ain't  that." 

"  Ellen  don't  act  as  if  she  minded  anything  about  his 
not  comin',"  said  Andrew,  anxiously. 

"  Land,  no ;  she  ain't  that  kind.  She's  too  much  like 
her  grandmother,  but  there  'ain't  been  a  night  lately 
that  she  'ain't  done  her  hair  over  when  she  got  home 
from  the  shop  and  changed  her  dress." 

"She  always  changes  her  dress,  don't  she?"  said 
Andrew. 

"Oh  yes,  she  always  has  done  that.  I  guess  she 

440 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

likes  to  get  rid  of  the  leather  smell  for  a  while ;  but  she 
has  put  on  that  pretty,  new,  red  silk  waist,  and  I've  seen 
her  watchin',  though  she's  never  said  anything." 

"You  don't  suppose  she — "  began  Andrew,  in  a 
voice  of  intensest  anxiety  and  indignant  tenderness. 

"  Land,  no ;  Ellen  Brewster  ain't  a  girl  to  fret  herself 
much  over  any  man  unless  she's  sure  he  wants  her; 
trust  her.  Don't  you  worry  about  that.  All  I  mean 
is,  I  know  she's  had  a  kind  of  an  idea  that  he  might 
come." 

Ellen,  up-stairs,  lay  listening  against  her  will,  and 
felt  herself  burning  with  mortified  pride  and  shame. 
She  said  to  herself  that  she  would  never  put  on  that 
red  silk  waist  again  of  an  evening;  she  would  not  even 
do  her  hair  over.  It  was  quite  true  that  she  had  thought 
that  Robert  might  come,  that  he  might  renew  his  offer, 
now  that  he  was  so  differently  situated,  and  the  obstacles, 
on  his  side,  at  least,  removed.  She  told  herself  all  the 
time  that  the  obstacles  on  her  own  were  still  far  from 
removed.  She  asked  herself  how  could  she,  even  if 
this  man  loved  her  and  wished  to  marry  her,  allow 
him  to  support  all  her  family,  although  he  might  be 
able  to  do  so.  She  often  told  herself  that  she  ought 
perhaps  to  have  pride  enough  to  refuse,  and  yet  she 
watched  for  him  to  come.  She  had  reflected  at  first 
that  it  was,  of  course,  impossible  for  him  to  seem  to  take 
advantage  of  the  deaths  which  had  left  him  with  this 
independence,  that  he  must  stay  away  for  a  while  from 
motives  of  delicacy ;  but  now  the  months  were  going, 
and  she  began  to  wonder  if  he  never  would  come.  Every 
night,  when  she  took  off  the  pretty,  red  silk  waist,  donned 
in  vain,  and  let  down  her  fair  lengths  of  hair,  it  was  with 
a  sinking  of  her  heart,  and  a  sense  of  incredulous  un- 
happiness.  Ellen  had  always  had  a  sort  of  sanguinity 
of  happiness  and  of  the  petting  of  Providence  as  well 
as  of  her  friends.  However,  the  girl  had,  in  spite  of  her 

441 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

childlike  trust  in  the  beauty  of  her  life,  plenty  of  strength 
to  meet  its  refutal,  and  a  pride  equal  to  her  grand 
mother's.  In  case  Robert  Lloyd  should  never  approach 
her  again,  she  would  try  to  keep  one  face  of  her  soul 
always  veiled  to  her  inmost  consciousness. 

The  next  evening  she  was  careful  not  to  put  on  her 
red  silk  waist,  but  changed  her  shop  dress  for  her  old 
blue  woollen,  and  only  smoothed  her  hair.  She  even 
went  to  bed  early  in  order  to  prove  to  her  mother  that 
she  expected  nobod3^. 

"You  ain't  goin'  to  bed  as  early  as  this,  Ellen?" 
her  mother  said,  as  she  lighted  her  lamp. 
"Yes,  I'm  going  to  bed  and  read/' 
"Seems  as  if  somebody  might  be  in,"  said  Fanny, 
awkwardly. 

"I  don't  know  who,"  Ellen  returned,  with  a  gentle 
haughtiness. 

Andrew  colored.  He  was  at  his  usual  task  of  paring 
apples.  Andrew,  in  lieu  of  regular  work  outside,  as 
sisted  in  these  household  tasks,  that  his  wife  might  have 
more  time  to  sew.  He  looked  unusually  worn  and  old 
that  night. 

"If  anybody  does  come,  Ellen  will  have  to  get  up, 
that's  all,"  said  Fanny,  when  the  girl  had  gone  up 
stairs.  Then  she  pricked  up  her  ears,  for  the  electric- 
car  had  stopped  before  the  house.  Then  it  went  on, 
with  a  sharp  clang  of  the  bell  and  a  gathering  rush  of 
motion. 

"That  car  stopped/'  Fanny  said,  breathlessly,  her 
work  falling  from  her  fingers.  Andrew  and  she  both 
listened  intently,  then  footsteps  were  heard  plainly  com 
ing  around  the  path  at  the  side  of  the  house. 

Fanny's  face  fell.  "It's  only  some  of  the  men," 
said  she,  in  a  low  voice.  Then  there  came  a  knock 
on  the  side  door,  and  Andrew  ushered  in  John  Sargent, 
Joe  Atkins,  and  Amos  Lee.  Nahum  Seals  did  not  come 

442 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

in  those  days,  for  he  was  in  prison  awaiting  trial  for 
the  murder  of  Norman  Lloyd.  However,  Amos  Lee's 
note  was  as  impressive  as  his.  He  called  often  with 
Sargent  and  Atkins.  They  could  not  shake  him  off. 
He  lay  in  wait  for  them  at  street  corners,  and  joined 
them.  He  never  saw  Ellen  alone,  and  did  not  openly 
proclaim  his  calls  as  meant  for  her.  She  prevent 
ed  him  from  doing  that  in  a  manner  which  he  could 
not  withstand,  full  of  hot  and  reckless  daring  as  he 
was.  When  he  entered  that  night  he  looked  around 
with  keen  furtiveness,  and  was  evidently  listening  and 
watching  for  her,  though  presently  his  voice  rose  high 
in  discussion  with  the  others.  After  a  while  the  man 
who  lived  next  door  dropped  in,  and  his  wife  with  him . 
She  and  Fanny  withdrew  to  the  dining  -  room  with 
their  sewing — for  the  woman  also  worked  on  wrappers 
— and  left  the  sitting-room  to  the  men. 

"  It  beats  all  how  they  like  to  talk/'  said  the  wom 
an,  with  a  large-minded  leniency,  "and  they  never  get 
anywhere,"  she  added.  "  They  work  themselves  all  up, 
and  never  get  anywhere;  but  men  are  all  like  that." 

"Yes,  they  be,"  assented  Fanny. 

"Jest  hear  that  Lee  feller,"  said  the  woman. 

Amos  Lee's  voice  was  audible  over  the  little  house, 
and  could  have  been  heard  in  the  yard,  for  it  had  an 
enormous  carrying  quality.  It  was  the  voice  of  a 
public  ranter.  Ellen,  up  in  her  chamber,  lying  in  her 
bed,  with  a  lamp  at  her  side,  reading,  closely  covered 
from  the  cold — for  the  room  was  unheated — heard  him 
with  a  shiver  of  disgust  and  repulsion,  and  yet  with  a 
fierce  sympathy  and  loyalty.  She  could  not  distin 
guish  every  word  he  said,  but  she  knew  well  what  he 
was  talking  about. 

Mrs.  Lloyd's  death  had  made  a  certain  hush  in  the 
ferment  of  revolt  at  Lloyd's,  but  now  it  was  again  on 
the  move.  There  was  a  strong  feeling  of  dislike  to 

443 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

young  Lloyd  among  the  workmen.  His  uncle  had 
heaped  up  ill-feeling  as  well  as  wealth  as  a  heritage 
for  him.  The  older  Lloyd  had  never  been  popular, 
and  Robert  had  succeeded  to  all  his  unpopularity, 
and  was  fast  gathering  his  own.  He  was  undoubt 
edly  disposed  to  follow  largely  his  uncle's  business 
methods.  He  had  admired  them,  they  had  proved 
successful,  and  he  had  honestly  seen  nothing  culpa 
ble  in  them  as  business  methods  go;  so  it  was  not 
strange  that  he  tried  to  copy  them  when  he  came 
into  charge  of  Lloyd's.  He  was  inclined  to  meet  op 
position  with  the  same  cool  inflexibility  of  persistency 
in  his  own  views,  and  was  disposed  to  consult  his 
own  interests  and  carry  out  his  own  plans  with  no 
more  brooking  of  interference  than  the  skipper  of  a 
man-o'-war.  Therefore,  when  it  happened,  shortly 
after  his  aunt's  death,  that  he  conceived  a  dissatis 
faction  with  some  prominent  spirits  among  union  men, 
he  discharged  them  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
the  fact  that  they  were  old  and  skilful  workmen,  and 
employed  non-union  men  from  another  town  in  their 
places.  He  had,  indeed,  the  object  of  making  in  time 
his  factory  entirely  non-union.  He  said  to  himself 
that  he  would  be  dictated  to  by  no  labor  organization 
under  the  sun,  and  that  went  a  step  beyond  his  uncle, 
inasmuch  as  the  elder  Lloyd  had  always  made  his 
own  opinion  subservient  to  good  business  policy;  but 
Robert  was  younger  and  his  blood  hotter.  It  happened, 
also,  a  month  later,  when  he  began  to  see  that  business 
had  fallen  off  considerably  (indeed,  it  was  the  beginning 
of  a  period  of  extreme  business  depression),  and  that 
he  could  no  longer  continue  on  the  same  scale  with  the 
same  profits,  that  instead  of  assembling  the  men  in 
different  departments,  communicating  the  situation 
to  them,  and  submitting  them  a  reduced  price-list 
for  consideration,  as  was  the  custom  with  the  more 

444 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

j  pacific  of  the  manufacturers  in  the  vicinity,  he  posted 
[  it  up  in  the  different  rooms  with  no  ado  whatever.  That 
had  been  his  uncle's  method,  but  never  in  the  face  of 
such  brewing  discontent  as  was  prevalent  in  Lloyd's 
at  that  time.  It  was  an  occasion  when  the  older  man 
would  have  shut  down,  but  Robert  had,  along  with  his 
arbitrary  impetuosity,  a  real  dislike  to  shut  down  on 
account  of  the  men,  for  which  they  would  have  been 
the  last  to  give  him  credit.  "Poor  devils,"  he  told 
himself,  standing  in  the  office  window  one  night,  and 
seeing  them  pour  out  and  disappear  into  the  early  dark 
ness  beyond  the  radius  of  the  electric-lights,  "I  can't 
turn  them  adrift  without  a  dollar  in  midwinter.  I'll 
try  to  run  the  factory  a  while  longer  on  a  reduced  scale, 
if  I  only  meet  expenses." 

He  saw  Ellen  going  out,  descending  the  steps  with 
the  Atkins  girls,  and  as  she  passed  the  light,  her  fair 
head  shone  out  for  a  second  like  an  aureole.  A  great 
wave  of  tenderness  came  over  him.  He  reflected  that 
it  would  make  no  difference  to  her,  that  it  was  only  a 
question  of  time  before  he  lifted  her  forever  out  of  the 
ranks  of  toil.  The  impulse  was  strong  upon  him  to 
go  to  see  her  that  night,  but  he  had  set  himself  to  wait 
three  months  after  his  aunt's  death,  and  the  time  was 
not  yet  up.  He  had  a  feeling  that  he  might  seem  to  be, 
and  possibly  would  be,  taking  advantage  of  his  bereave 
ment  if  he  went  sooner,  and  that  Ellen  herself  might 
think  so. 

It  was  that  very  night  that  Ellen  had  gone  to  bed 
early,  to  prove  not  only  to  her  mother  but  to  herself 
that  she  did  not  expect  him,  and  the  men  came  to  see 
Andrew.  Once  she  heard  Amos  Lee's  voice  raised  to  a 
higher  pitch  than  ever,  and  distinguished  every  word. 

"I  tell  you  he's  goin'  to  cut  the  wages  to-morrow," 
said  he. 

There  was  a  low  rumble  of  response,  which  Ellen 

445 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

could  not  understand,  but  Lee's  answer  made  it  evi-1 
dent. 

"How  do  I  know?"  he  thundered.  "It  is  in  the! 
air.  He  don't  tell  any  more  than  his  uncle  did ;  buti 
you  wait  and  see,  that's  all." 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  the  girl  up-stairs  said  to  herself,! 
indignantly  and  loyally.  "He  can't  cut  the  wages! 
of  all  those  poor  men,  he  with  all  his  uncle's  money." 

But  the  next  morning  the  reduced  price-list  was  post 
ed  on  the  walls  of  the  different  rooms  in  Lloyd's. 

446 


CHAPTER   XL VII 

THERE  was  a  driving  snow-storm  the  next  day. 
^Vhen  Ellen  started  for  the  factory  the  white  twilight 
if    early    morning    still    lingered.     Everywhere    were 
he  sons  and  daughters  of  toil  plodding  laboriously 
md  noiselessly  through  the  snow,  each  keeping  in  the 
rack  of  the  one  who  went  before.     There  was  no  wind 
>lowing,  and  the  snow  was  in  a  blue-white  level;  the 
trees  bent  stiffly  and  quietly  beneath  a  heavy  shag  of 
white,  and  now  and  then  came  a  clamor  of  birds,  which 
served    to   accentuate    the   silence   and    peace.     Ellen 
could  always  be  forced  by  an  extreme  phase  of  nature 
to  forgetfulness  of  her  own  stresses.     For  the  time  be 
ing  she  forgot  everything ;  her  vain  watching  for  Robert, 
the  talk  of  trouble  in  the  factory,  the  disappointment 
in  her  home — all  were  forgotten  in  the  contemplation, 
or  rather  in  the  absorbing,  of  this  ne\v-old  wonder  of 
snow. 

There  was  a  survival  of  the  old  Greek  spirit  in  the 
girl,  and  had  she  come  to  earth  without  her  background 
of  orthodox  traditions,  she  might  have  easily  found 
her  own  deities  in  nature.  The  peace  of  the  snow  en 
veloped  her  soul  as  well  as  the  earth,  and  she  became 
a  beneficiary  of  the  white  storm;  the  graceful  droop 
of  the  pine  boughs  extended  to  her  thoughts,  and  the 
clamor  of  the  birds  aroused  in  her  a  winged  freedom,  so 
that  she  felt  at  once  peace  and  a  sort  of  ecstasy.  She 
walked  in  the  track  of  a  stolidly  plodding  man  before 
her,  as  different  a  person  as  if  she  were  an  inhabitant 
of  another  planet.  He  was  digesting  the  soggy. 

447 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

sweet  griddle-cakes  which  he  had  eaten  for  breakfast, 
and  revolving  in  his  mind  two  errands  for  his  wife — 
one,  a  pail  of  lard ;  the  other,  three  yards  of  black  dress 
braid;  he  was  considering  the  surface  scum  of  exist 
ence,  that  which  pertained  solely  to  his  own  petty 
share  of  it ;  the  girl,  the  clear  residue  of  life  which  was, 
and  had  been,  and  would  be.  Each  was  on  the  way  to 
humble  labor  for  daily  bread,  but  with  a  difference  of 
eternity  between  them. 

But  when  Ellen  reached  the  end  of  the  cross  street 
where  the  Atkins  girls  lived,  she  heard  a  sound  which 
dispelled  her  rapt  state.  Her  far  vision  became  a  near 
one;  she  saw,  as  it  were,  the  clouded  window -glass 
between  her  mortal  eyes  and  the  beyond,  and  the  sound 
of  a  cough  brought  it  about.  Abby  and  Maria  were 
coming  towards  her  through  the  snow.  Maria  was 
coughing  violently,  and  Abby  was  scolding  her. 

"  I  don't  care  anything  about  it,  Maria  Atkins," 
Abby  was  saying,  "  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  your 
self  coming  out  such  a  morning  as  this.  There  isn't 
any  sense  in  it.  You  know  you'll  catch  cold,  and  then 
there'll  be  two  of  you  to  take  care  of.  You  don't  help 
a  mite  doing  so,  you  needn't  think  you  do." 

When  Abby  caught  sight  of  Ellen  she  hastened 
forward,  while  Maria,  still  coughing,  trailed  behind, 
lifting  her  little,  heavy,  snow-bound  feet  wrearily. 

"Ellen,  I  wish  you'd  tell  Maria  to  turn  around  and 
go  home,"  she  said.  "Just  hear  her  cough,  and  out 
in  all  this  snow,  and  getting  her  skirts  draggled.  She 
hasn't  got  common-sense,  you  tell  her  so." 

Ellen  stopped,  nodding  assentingly.  "  I  think  she's 
right,  Maria,"  she  said.  "You  ought  not  to  be  out 
such  a  morning  as  this.  You  had  better  go  home." 

Maria  came  up  smiling,  though  her  lips  were  quite 
white,  and  she  controlled  her  cough  to  convulsive  mo 
tions  of  her  chest. 

448 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"  I  am  no  worse  than  usual/'  said  she.  "  I  feel  better 
than  I  generally  do  in  the  morning.  I  haven't  coughed 
any  more,  if  I  have  as  much,  and  1  am  holding  my 
dress  up  high,  and  you  know  how  warm  the  factory 
is.  It  will  be  enough  sight  warmer  than  it  is  at  home. 
It  is  cold  at  home." 

"Lloyd  don't  have  to  save  coal,"  said  Abby,  bitter 
ly,  "  but  that  don't  alter  the  fact  of  your  getting  your 
skirts  draggled." 

Maria  pulled  up  her  skirts  so  high  that  she  exposed 
her  slender  ankles,  then  seeing  that  she  had  done  so, 
she  let  them  fall  with  a  quick  glance  at  two  men  behind 
them. 

"The  snow  will  shake  right  off;  it's  light,  Abby," 
she  said. 

"It  ain't  light.  I  should  think  you  might  listen  to 
Ellen,  if  you  won't  to  me." 

Ellen  pressed  close  to  Maria,  and  pulled  her  thin  ami 
through  her  own.  "Look  here,"  she  said,  "don't 
you  think — " 

Then  Maria  burst  out  with  a  pitiful  emphasis.  "  I've 
got  to  go,"  she  said.  "Father  had  a  bad  spell  last 
night ;  he  can't  get  out.  He'll  lose  his  place  this  time, 
we  are  afraid,  and  there's  a  note  coming  due  that  father 
says  he's  paid,  but  the  man  didn't  give  it  up,  and  he's 
got  to  pay  it  over  again;  the  lawyer  says  there  is  no 
other  way,  and  we  can't  let  John  Sargent  do  everything. 
He's  got  a  sister  out  West  he's  about  supporting  since 
her  husband  died  last  fall.  I've  got  to  go  to  work  ; 
we've  got  to  have  the  money,  Ellen,  and  as  for  m}^ 
cough,  I  have  always  coughed.  It  hasn't  killed  me  yet, 
and  I  guess  it  won't  yet  for  a  while."  Maria  said  the 
last  with  a  reckless  gayety  which  was  unusual  to  her. 

Abby  trudged  on  ahead  with  indignant  emphasis. 
"  I'd  like  to  know  what  good  it  is  going  to  do  to  work 
and  earn  and   pay  up  money  if  everybody  is  going 
ZF  449 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  be  killed  by  it?"  she  said,  without  turning  her 
head. 

Ellen  pulled  up  Maria's  coat-collar  around  her  neck 
and  put  an  extra  fold  of  her  dress-skirt  into  her  hand. 

"  There,  you  can  hold  it  up  as  high  as  that,  it  looks 
all  right,"  said  she. 

"I  wish  Robert  Lloyd  had  to  get  up  at  six  o'clock 
and  trudge  a  mile  in  this  snow  to  his  work,"  said  Abby, 
with  sudden  viciousness.  "  He'll  be  driven  down  in 
his  Russian  sleigh  by  a  man  looking  like  a  drum-major, 
and  cut  our  poor  little  wages,  and  that's  all  he  cares. 
Who's  earning  the  money,  he  or  us,  I'd  like  to  know? 
I  hate  the  rich!" 

"  If  it's  true,  what  you  say,"  said  Maria,  "  it  seems  to 
me  it's  like  hating  those  you  have  given  things  to, 
and  that's  worse  than  hating  your  enemies." 

"Don't  say  given,  say  been  forced  to  hand  over," 
retorted  Abby,  fiercely ;  "  and  don't  preach,  Maria  Atkins, 
I  hate  preaching ;  and  do  have  sense  enough  not  to  talk 
when  you  are  out  in  this  awful  storm.  You  can  keep 
your  mouth  shut,  if  you  can't  do  anything  else!" 

Ellen  had  turned  quite  white  at  Abby's  words. 

"You  don't  think  that  he  means  to  cut  the  wages?" 
she  said,  eagerly. 

"I  know  he  does.  I  had  it  straight.  Wait  till  you 
get  to  the  shop." 

"I  don't  believe  it." 

"You  wait.  Norman  Lloyd  was  as  hard  as  nails, 
and  the  young  one  is  just  like  him."  Abby  looked 
relentlessly  at  Ellen. 

"Maybe  it  isn't  so,"  whispered  Maria  to  Ellen. 

"I  don't  believe  it  is,"  responded  Ellen,  but  Abby 
heard  them,  and  turned  with  a  vicious  jerk. 

"Well,  you  wait!"  said  she. 

The  moment  Ellen  reached  the  factory  she  realized 
that  something  unwonted  had  happened.  There  were 

450 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

groups  of  men,  talking,  oblivious  even  of  the  blinding 
storm,  which  was  coming  in  the  last  few  minutes  with 
renewed  fury,  falling  in  heavy  sheets  like  dank  shrouds. 

Ellen  saw  one  man  in  a  muttering  group  throw  out 
an  arm,  whitened  like  a  branch  of  a  tree,  and  shake  a 
rasped,  red  fist  at  the  splendid  Russian  sleigh  of  the 
Lloyd's,  which  was  just  gliding  out  of  sight  with  a 
flurry  of  bells  and  a  swing  of  fur  tails,  the  whole  sur 
mounted  by  the  great  fur  hat  of  the  coachman.  Abby 
turned  and  looked  fiercely  at  Ellen. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  she  cried. 

Even  then  Ellen  would  not  believe.  She  caught  a 
glimpse  of  Robert's  fair  head  at  the  office  window,  and 
a  great  impulse  of  love  and  loyalty  came  over  her. 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  she  said  aloud  to  Maria.  Maria 
held  her  arm  tightly. 

"Maybe  it  isn't  so,"  she  said. 

But  when  they  entered  the  room  where  they  worked, 
there  was  a  sullen  group  before  a  placard  tacked  on  the 
wall.  Ellen  pressed  closely,  and  saw  what  it  was — 
a  reduced  wage-list.  Then  she  went  to  her  machine. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

ELLEN  had  a  judicial  turn  of  mind,  as  her  school 
master  had  once  said  of  her.  She  was  able  to  look 
at  matters  from  more  than  one  stand-point,  but  she 
reasoned  with  a  New  Testament  clearness  of  impar- 
tiality.  She  was  capable  of  uncompromising  severity, 
since  she  brought  such  a  clear  light  of  youth  and  child 
hood  to  bear  upon  even  those  things  which  needed  shad 
ows  for  their  true  revelation.  Everything  was  for  her 
either  black  or  white.  She  had  not  lived  long  enough, 
perhaps  she  never  would,  for  a  comprehension  of  half 
tones.  The  situation  to  her  mind  was  perfectly  simple, 
and  she  viewed  it  with  a  candor  which  was  at  once 
terrible  and  cruel,  for  it  involved  cruelty  not  only  to 
Robert  but  to  herself.  She  said  to  herself,  here  was  this 
rich  man,  this  man  with  accumulation  of  wealth,  not 
one  dollar  of  which  he  had  earned  himself,  either  by 
his  hands  or  his  brains,  but  which  had  been  heaped 
up  for  his  uncle  by  the  heart  and  back  breaking  toil  of 
all  these  poor  men  and  women ;  and  now  he  was  going  to 
abuse  his  power  of  capital,  his  power  to  take  the  bread 
out  of  their  mouths  entirely,  by  taking  it  out  in  part. 
1  le  was  going  to  reduce  their  wages,  he  was  deliberately 
going  to  cause  privation,  and  even  suffering  where  there 
were  large  families.  She  felt  the  most  unqualified 
dissent  and  indignation,  and  all  the  love  which  she  had 
for  the  man  only  intensified  it.  Love,  with  a  girl  like 
this,  tended  to  clearness  of  vision  instead  of  blindness. 
She  judged  him  as  she  would  have  judged  herself.  As 
she  stood  working  at  her  machine,  stitching  linings 

452 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

to  vamps,  shs  kept  a  sharply  listening  ear  for  what  went 
on  about  her,  but  there  was  very  little  to  hear  after  work 
had  fairly  commenced  and  the  great  place  was  in  full 
hum.  The  demand  of  labor  was  so  imperative  that  the 
laborers  themselves  were  merged  in  it;  they  ceased  to 
be  for  the  time,  and,  instead  of  living,  they  became 
parts  of  the  struggle  for  life.  A  man  hustling  as  if 
the  world  were  at  stake  to  get  his  part  of  a  shoe  finished 
as  soon  as  another  man,  so  as  not  to  clog  and  balk  the 
whole  system,  had  no  time  for  rebellion.  He  was  in 
the  whirlpool  which  was  mightier  than  himself  and  his 
revolt.  After  all,  a  man  is  a  small  and  helpless  factor  be 
fore  his  own  needs.  For  a  time  those  whirring  machines, 
which  had  been  evolved  in  the  first  place  from  the  brains 
of  men,  and  partook  in  a  manner  of  both  the  spirit  and 
the  grosser  elements  of  existence,  its  higher  qualities 
and  its  sordid  mechanism,  like  man  himself,  had  the 
best  of  it.  The  swart  arms  of  the  workmen  flew  at 
their  appointed  tasks,  they  fed  those  unsatisfied  maws, 
the  factory  vibrated  with  the  heavy  thud  of  the  cutting- 
machines  like  a  pulse,  the  racks  with  shoes  in  different 
stages  of  completion  trundled  from  one  department  to 
another,  propelled  by  men  with  tense  arms  and  doggedly 
bent  heads. 

Ellen  worked  with  the  rest,  but  she  was  one  of  the 
few  whose  brain  could  travel  faster  than  her  hands. 
She  thought  as  she  worked,  for  her  muscles  did  not  retard 
her  mind.  She  was  composed  of  two  motions,  one 
within  the  other,  and  the  central  motion  was  so  swift 
that  it  seemed  still. 

Ed  Flynn  came  down  the  room  and  bent  over 
her. 

"Good-morning,"  lie  said.  He  was  too  gayly  con 
fident  to  be  entirely  respectful,  but  he  had  always  a 
timidity  of  bearing  which  sat  oddly  upon  him  before 
Ellen.  He  looked  half  boldly,  half  wistfully  at  her  fair 

453 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

face,  and  challenged  her  with  gay  eyes,  which  had  in 
their  depths  a  covert  seriousness. 

Ellen  stood  between  Abby  Atkins  and  Sadie  Peel 
at  her  work.  Sadie  Peel  turned  on  the  foreman  co- 
quettishly  and  said,  "  You'd  better  go  an'  talk  to  Mamie 
Brady,  she's  got  on  a  new  blue  bow  on  her  red  hair. 
Why  don't  you  give  her  some  better  work  than  tying 
those  old  shoes?  Here  she's  been  workin'  in  this  shop 
two  years.  You  needn't  come  shinin'  round  Ellen  an' 
me!  We  don't  want  you." 

Flynn  colored  angrily  and  shot  a  vicious  glance  at 
the  girl. 

"  It's  a  pretty  hard  storm,"  he  said  to  Ellen,  as  if  the 
other  girl  had  not  spoken. 

"  You  needn't  pretend  you  don't  hear  me,  Ed  Flynn," 
called  out  the  girl.  Her  cheap  finety  was  in  full  force 
that  morning,  not  a  lock  of  her  brown  hair  was  unstudied 
in  its  arrangement,  and  she  was  as  conscious  of  her  pose 
before  her  machine  as  if  she  had  been  on  the  stage. 
She  knew  just  how  her  slender  waist  and  the  graceful 
slope  of  her  shoulders  appeared  to  the  foreman,  and  her 
voice,  in  spite  of  its  gay  rallying  and  audacity,  was 
wheedling. 

Flynn  caught  hold  of  her  shoulders,  round  and  grace 
ful  under  her  flannel  blouse,  and  shook  her,  half  in 
anger,  half  in  weakness. 

"You  shut  up,  you  witch,"  said  he.  Then  he  turned 
to  Ellen  again,  and  his  whole  manner  and  expression 
changed. 

"  I'm  sorry  about  that  new  list,"  he  said,  very  low, 
in  her  ear.  Ellen  never  looked  at  him,  and  did  not 
make  a  motion  as  if  she  heard. 

"It's  a  hard  storm,"  the  foreman  said  again,  almost 
appealingly. 

"Yes,  it  is  very  hard,"  replied  Ellen,  slipping  another 
shoe  under  the  needles. 

454 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  What  on  earth  ails  you  this  morning,  Ellen  Brew- 
ster?"  Sadie  Peel  said  to  her,  when  the  foreman  had 
gone.  "You  look  queer  and  act  queer." 

"Ellen  ain't  in  the  habit  of  joking  with  Ed  Flynn," 
said  Abby  Atkins,  on  the  other  side,  with  sarcastic 
emphasis. 

"My,  don't  you  feel  big!"  sneered  Sadie  Peel. 
There  was  always  a  jarring  inconsequence  about  this 
girl,  she  was  so  delicately  pretty  and  refined  in  ap 
pearance,  her  ribbons  weit  so  profuse  and  cheap,  and 
her  manners  were  so  recklessly  coarse. 

Ellen  said  nothing,  but  worked  steadily. 

"  Mame  Brady's  just  gone  on  Ed  Flynn,  and  he  goes 
with  her  just  enough  to  keep  her  hanging  and  I  don't 
believe  he  means  to  marry  her,  and  I  think  it's  mean," 
said  Sadie  Peel. 

"She  ought  to  have  more  sense  than  to  take  any 
stock  in  him,"  said  Abby. 

"She  ain't  the  only  one,"  said  Sadie.  "Nellie  Stone 
in  the  office  has  been  daft  over  him  since  she's  been 
there,  and  he  don't  look  at  her.  I  don't  see  what 
there  is  about  Ed  Flynn,  for  my  part." 

"I  don't,"  said  Abby,  dryly. 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  He's  pretty  good-looking," 
said  Sadie  Peel,  "  and  he's  got  a  sort  of  a  way  with  him. " 
All  the  time  the  girl  was  talking  her  heart  was  aching. 
The  foreman  had  paid  her  some  little  attention,  which 
she  had  taken  seriously,  but  nobody  except  her  father 
had  known  it,  or  known  when  he  had  fallen  off.  Some 
times  Flynn,  meeting  the  father's  gaze  as  he  passed  him 
at  his  work  at  the  cutting-bench,  used  to  waver  involun 
tarily,  though  he  asked  himself  with  perfect  good  faith 
what  was  it  all  about,  for  he  had  done  the  girl  no  harm. 
He  felt  more  guilty  concerning  Mamie  Brady. 

Ellen  worked  on,  with  her  fingers  flying  and  her 
forehead  tense  with  thought.  The  chatter  of  the  girls 

455 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ceased.  They  were  too  busy  to  keep  it  up.  The  hum 
of  work  continued.  Once  Ellen  knew,  although  she 
did  not  see  him,  by  some  subtle  disturbance  of  the  at 
mosphere,  a  little  commotion  which  was  perfectly  silent, 
that  Robert  Lloyd  had  entered  the  room.  She  knew 
when  he  passed  her,  and  she  worked  more  swiftly  than 
ever.  After  he  had  gone  out  there  was  a  curiously  in 
articulate  sound  like  a  low  growl  of  purely  animal 
dissent  over  the  room;  a  word  of  blasphemy  sounded 
above  the  din  of  the  machines.  Then  all  went  on  as 
before  until  the  noon  whistle  blew. 

Even  then  there  was  not  so  much  discussion  as  might 
have  been  expected.  Robert,  since  the  storm  was  so 
heavy,  remained  in  the  office,  and  sent  a  boy  out  for  a 
light  luncheon,  and  the  foremen  were  much  in  evidence. 
There  was  always  an  uncertainty  about  their  sentiments, 
occupying  as  they  did  a  position  half  -  way  between 
employer  and  employes;  and  then,  too,  they  were  not 
affected  by  the  cut  in  wages.  The  sentiments  of  the 
unaffected  are  always  a  matter  of  suspicion  to  those 
who  suffer  themselves.  There  were  grumblings  carried 
on  in  a  low  key  behind  Flynn's  back,  but  the  atmosphere 
for  the  most  part  was  one  of  depression.  Ellen  ate  her 
luncheon  with  Maria  and  Abby.  Willy  Jones  came  up 
timidly  when  they  were  nearly  finished,  feeling  his  way 
with  a  remark  about  the  storm,  which  was  increasing. 

"All  the  cars  are  tied  up,"  he  said,  "and  the  noon 
train  isn't  in." 

He  leaned,  with  a  curious  effort  at  concealment  from 
them  all  and  himself,  upon  the  corner  of  the  bench  near 
Abby.  Then  a  young  man  passed  them,  with  such 
an  air  of  tragedy  and  such  a  dead-white  face  that  they 
all  stared  after  him. 

"What  in  the  world  ails  you,  Ben  Simmons?"  called 
out  Sadie  Peel.  But  he  did  not  act  as  if  he  heard.  He 
crossed  vehemently  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and 

456 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

stood  at  a  window,  looking  out  at  the  fierce  white  slant 
of  the  storm. 

"What  in  creation  ails  him?"  cried  Sadie  Peel. 

"  I  guess  I  know/'  Willy  Jones  volunteered,  timidly. 

"What?" 

"He  was  going  to  get  married,  and  this  cut  in  his 
wages  is  going  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  I  heard  him  say  so 
this  morning." 

"Married!     Who  to?"  asked  Sadie  Peel. 

"Floretta  Vining." 

"My  land!"  cried  Sadie  Peel.  "So  she  did  take  up 
with  him  after  the  .school-teacher  went  away.  I  always 
said  she  would.  I  always  knew  Edward  Harris  wouldn't 
marry  her,  and  I  always  said  Ben  Simmons  would  get 
her  if  he  hung  on  long  enough.  Floretta  was  bound 
to  marry  somebody;  she  wasn't  going  to  wind  up  an 
old  maid;  and  if  she  couldn't  get  one,  she'd  take  an 
other.  I  suppose  Ben  has  got  that  sick  sister  of  his 
to  do  for  since  her  father  died,  and  thinks  he  can't  get 
married  with  any  less  pay.  Floretta  won't  make  a  very 
cheap  wife.  She's  bound  to  have  things  whether  or 
no,  and  Ben  'ain't  never  earned  so  much  as  some.  He's 
awful  steady,  but  he's  slow  as  cold  molasses,  and  he 
won't  let  his  sister  suffer  for  no  Floretta." 

"That's  so;  I  don't  believe  he  would,"  said  Abby. 
"What  any  man  in  his  senses  wants  a  doll  like  that 
for  enough  to  look  as  if  he  was  dead  when  he's  got 
to  put  off  marrying  her!" 

"That's  because  you  ain't  a  man,  Abby  Atkins," 
said  Sadie  Peel.  "  All  the  men  think  of  is  looks,  and 
little  fine  airs  and  graces." 

"  It  seems  as  if  they  might  get  along,"  ventured  Willy 
Jones,  "  as  if  they  might  do  with  less  for  a  while." 

Then  Ellen  turned  to  him  unexpectedly.  "There's 
no  use  in  talking  about  doing  with  less  when  every 
single  cent  has  to  count,"  said  she,  sternly.  "Ben 

457 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Simmons  has  his  taxes  and  insurance,  and  a  steady 
doctor's  bill  for  his  sister,  and  medicines  to  buy.  He 
can't  have  laid  up  a  cent,  for  he's  slow,  though  he's 
a  good  workman.  You  can't  do  with  less  when  you 
haven't  any  more  than  enough." 

"  That's  so/'  said  Abby.  Then  she  turned  a  tender, 
conciliating,  indulgent  gaze  on  the  young  man  at  her 
side.  "If  I  were  Floretta  Vining,"  said  she,  "and  if 
Ellen  were,  we  would  go  without  things,  and  never 
know  it.  We'd  go  to  work ;  but  Floretta,  she's  different. 
We  went  to  school  with  Floretta  Vining." 

"Floretta  Vining  is  dreadful  fond  of  men,  but  she 
wouldn't  go  without  a  yard  of  ribbon  for  one  if  he  was 
dying,"  said  Sadie  Peel,  conclusively.  "It's  awful 
hard  on  Ben  Simmons,  and  no  mistake." 

"What?"  said  Amos  Lee,  coming  up. 

"Oh,  what's  hard  on  all  of  us?  What's  the  use  of 
asking?"  said  the  girl,  with  a  bitter  coquetry.  "I 
shouldn't  think  any  man  with  horse-sense  would  ask 
what's  hard  on  us  when  he's  seen  the  ornaments  tacked 
up  all  over  the  shop  this  morning." 

"  That's  so,"  said  Lee,  with  a  glance  over  his  shoulder. 
Flynn  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.  Granville  Joy, 
Dixon,  and  one  or  two  other  men  were  sauntering  up. 
For  a  second  the  little  group  looked  at  one  another. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Ellen,  in  a  low 
voice,  which  had  an  intonation  that  caused  the  others 
to  start. 

"  I  know  what  I'll  do,  if  I  can  get  enough  to  back  me," 
cried  Lee,  in  a  loud  voice. 

"Hush  up!"  said  Sadie  Peel.  Then  her  father  came 
along  smiling  his  imperturbable  smile  on  his  wide  face, 
which  had  a  Slavonic  cast,  although  he  was  New  Eng 
land  born  and  bred.  He  looked  from  one  to  the  other 
without  saying  a  word. 

"We're  deciding  whether  to  strike  or  not,  father," 

458 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

said  Sadie,  in  a  flippant  manner.  She  raised  a  hand 
and  adjusted  a  stray  lock  of  hair  as  she  spoke,  then 
she  straightened  her  ribbon  stock.  Her  father  said 
nothing,  but  his  face  assumed  a  stolidity  of  expression. 

"I  know  what  I'll  do,"  proclaimed  Amos  Lee  again. 

"Hush  up!"  cried  Sadie  Peel  again,  with  a  giggle. 
"  Here's  Ed  Flynn."     And  the  foreman  came  sauntering 
up  as  the  one -o'clock  whistle   blew,  and  the  workers 
sprang  to  their  posts  of  work. 
459 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

THE  snow  increased  all  day.  When  the  six-o'clock 
whistle  blew,  and  the  \vorkmen  streamed  out  of  the 
factories,  it  was  a  wild  waste  of  winter  and  storm.  The 
wind  had  come  up,  and  the  light  snow  arose  in  the  dis 
tance  like  white  dancers  of  death,  spinning  furiously 
over  the  level,  then  settling  into  long,  gravelike  ridges. 
Ellen  glanced  into  the  office  as  she  passed  the  door, 
and  saw  Robert  Lloyd  talking  busily  with  Flynn  and 
another  foreman  by  the  name  of  Dennison.  As  she 
passed,  Robert  turned  with  a  look  as  if  he  had  been 
watching  for  her,  and  came  forward  hastily. 

"Miss  Brewster!"  he  called. 

Mamie  Brady,  following  close  behind,  gave  Ellen 
an  admonishing  nudge.  "Boss  wants  to  see  you," 
she  whispered,  loudly.  Ellen  stopped,  and  Robert  came 
up. 

"Please  step  in  here  a  moment,  Miss  Brewster,"  he 
said,  and  colored  a  little. 

Granville  Joy,  who  was  following  Ellen,  looked  keen 
ly  at  him,  some  one  sniggered  aloud,  and  a  girl  said 
quite  audibly,  "My  land!" 

Ellen  followed  Robert  into  the  office,  and  he  bent  over 
her,  speaking  rapidly,  in  a  low  voice. 

"You  must  not  walk  home  in  this  snow,"  he  said, 
"and  the  cars  are  not  running.  You  must  let  me  take 
you.  My  sleigh  is  at  the  door." 

Ellen  turned  white.  Somehow  this  protecting  care 
for  herself,  in  the  face  of  all  which  she  had  been  con 
sidering  that  day,  gave  her  a  tremendous  shock.  She 

460 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

felt  at  once  touched  and  more  indignant  than  she  had 
ever  been  in  her  whole  life.  She  had  been  half  believing 
that  Robert  was  neglecting  her,  that  he  had  forgotten 
her;  all  day  she  had  been  judging  his  action  of  cutting 
the  wages  of  the  workmen  from  her  unswerving,  chilu- 
like,  unshadowed  point  of  view,  and  now  this  little  evi 
dence  of  humanity  towards  her,  in  the  face  of  what  she 
considered  wholesale  inhumanity  towards  others,  made 
her  at  once  severe  to  him  and  to  herself,  and  she  forced 
back  sternly  the  leap  of  pleasure  and  happiness  which  this 
thought  of  her  awakened.  "No,  thank  you,"  she  said, 
shortly;  "  I  am  much  obliged,  but  I  would  rather  walk." 

"  But  3rou  cannot,  in  this  storm,"  pleaded  Robert,  in 
a  low  voice. 

"  Yes,  I  can ;  it  is  no  worse  for  me  than  for  others. 
There  is  Maria  Atkins,  she  has  been  coughing  all  day." 

"  I  will  take  her  too.  Ellen,  you  cannot  walk.  You 
must  let  me  take  you." 

"  I  am  much  obliged,  but  I  would  rather  not,"  replied 
Ellen,  in  an  icy  tone.  She  looked  quite  hard  in  his 
face. 

Robert  looked  at  her  perplexed.  "  But  it  is  drifting," 
he  said. 

"It  is  no  worse  for  me  than  for  the  others."  Ellen 
turned  to  go.  Her  attitude  of  rebuff  was  unmistakable. 

Robert  colored.  "Very  well;  I  will  not  urge  you," 
he  said,  coldly.  Then  he  returned  to  his  desk,  and 
Ellen  went  out.  She  caught  up  with  Maria  Atkins, 
who  was  struggling  painfully  through  the  drifts,  lean 
ing  on  Abby's  arm,  and  slipped  a  hand  under  her  thin 
shoulder. 

"  I  expect  nothing  but  she'll  get  her  death  out  in  this 
storm,"  grumbled  Abby.  "  What  did  he  want,  Ellen?" 

"Nothing  in  particular,"  replied  Ellen.  Uppermost 
in  her  mind  at  that  moment  was  the  charge  of  cruelty 
against  Robert  for  not  taking  her  hint  as  to  Maria. 

461 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"He  can  ask  me  to  ride  because  he  has  amused  him 
self  with  me,  but  as  for  taking  this  poor  girl,  whom  he 
does  not  love,  when  it  may  mean  life  or  death  to  her,  he 
did  not  think  seriously  of  doing  that  for  a  moment/' 
she  thought. 

Maria  was  coughing,  although  she  strove  hard  to 
smother  the  coughs.  Granville  Joy,  who  was  plodding 
ahead,  turned  and  waited  until  they  came  up. 

"You  had  better  let  me  carry  you,  Maria,"  he  said, 
jocularly,  but  his  honest  eyes  were  full  of  concern. 

"He  is  enough  sight  kinder  than  Robert  Lloyd/' 
thought  Ellen;  "  he  has  a  better  heart."  And  then  the 
splendid  Lloyd  sleigh  came  up  behind  them  and  stopped, 
tilting  to  a  drift.  Robert,  in  his  fur-lined  coat,  sprang 
out  and  went  up  to  Maria. 

"Please  let  me  take  you  home,"  he  said,  kindly. 
"  You  have  a  cold,  and  this  storm  is  too  severe  for  you 
to  be  out.  Please  let  me  take  you  home." 

Maria  looked  at  him,  fairly  gasping  with  astonish 
ment.  She  tried  to  speak,  but  a  cough  choked  her. 

"You  had  better  go  if  Mr.  Lloyd  will  take  you," 
Abby  said,  decisively.  "  Thank  you,  Mr.  Lloyd ;  she 
isn't  fit  to  be  out."  She  urged  her  sister  towards  the 
sleigh,  and  Robert  assisted  her  into  the  fur-lined  nest. 

"I  can  sit  with  the  driver,"  said  Robert  to  Abby,  "if 
you  will  come  with  your  sister." 

"No,  thank  you,"  replied  Abby.  "I  am  able  to 
walk,  but  I  will  be  much  obliged  if  you  will  take  Maria 
home." 

Robert  sprang  in  beside  Maria,  and  the  sleigh  slid 
out  of  sight. 

"  I  never!"  said  Abby.  Ellen  said  nothing,  but  plod 
ded  on,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  snowy  track. 

"  I  am  glad  she  had  a  chance  to  ride,"  said  Granville 
Joy,  in  a  tentative  voice.  He  looked  uneasily  at  Ellen. 

"  It  beats  the  Dutch,"  said  Abby.  She  also  regarded 

462 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  with  sympathy  and  perplexity.  When  they 
reached  the  street  where  she  lived,  up  which  the  sleigh 
had  disappeared,  she  let  Granville  go  on  ahead,  and 
she  spoke  to  Ellen  in  a  low  tone.  "  Why  didn't  he  ask 
you?"  she  said. 

"He  did,"  replied  Ellen. 

"In  the  office?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you  wouldn't?" 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 

"  I  don't  care  to  accept  favors  from  a  man  who  op 
presses  all  my  friends!" 

"He  was  good  to  take  in  Maria,"  said  Abby,  in  a 
perplexed  voice.  "  His  uncle  would  never  have  thought 
of  it." 

Ellen  made  no  reply.  She  stood  still  in  the  drifting 
snow,  with  her  mouth  shut  hard. 

"  You  feel  as  if  this  cutting  wages  was  a  pretty  hard 
thing?"  said  Abby. 

"Yes,  I  do." 

"  Well,  so  do  I.  I  wonder  what  they  will  do  about  it. 
I  don't  know  how  the  men  feel.  Somehow,  folks  can't 
seem  to  think  or  plan  much  in  a  storm  like  this.  There's 
the  sleigh  coming  back." 

"Good-night,"  Ellen  said,  hurriedly,  and  trudged  on 
as  fast  as  she  was  able  in  order  not  to  have  the  Lloyd 
sleigh  pass  her;  it  had  to  turn  after  reaching  the  end 
of  the  street.  Ellen  caught  up  with  Granville  Joy. 
Robert,  glancing  over  the  waving  fringe  of  fur  tails, 
saw  disappearing  in  the  pale  gleam  of  the  electric-light 
the  two  dim  figures  veiled  by  the  drifting  snow.  He 
thought  to  himself,  with  a  sharp  pain,  that  perhaps, 
after  all,  Granville  Joy  was  the  reason  for  her  rebuff. 
It  never  occurred  to  him  that  his  action  in  cutting  the 
wages  could  have  anything  to  do  with  it. 

463 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

Ellen  went  along  with  Granville,  who  was  anxious 
to  offer  her  his  arm,  but  did  not  quite  dare.  He  kept 
thrusting  out  an  elbow  in  her  direction,  and  an  inartic 
ulate  invitation  died  in  his  throat.  Finally,  when  they 
reached  an  unusually  high  drift  of  snow,  he  plucked 
up  sufficient  courage. 

"Take  my  arm,  won't  you?"  he  said,  with  a  pitiful 
attempt  at  ease,  then  stared  as  if  he  had  been  shot, 
at  Ellen's  reply. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  she  said.  "  I  think  it  is  easier  to 
walk  alone  in  snow  like  this." 

"Maybe  it  is,"  assented  Granville,  dejectedly.  He 
walked  on,  scuffling  as  hard  as  he  could  to  make  a  path 
for  Ellen  with  the  patient  faithfulness  of  a  dog. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  the  cut  in  wages?" 
Ellen  asked,  presently. 

Granville  started.  The  sudden  transition  from  per 
sonalities  to  generalities  confused  him. 

"What?"  he  said. 

Ellen  repeated  her  question. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Granville.  "I  don't  think  the 
boys  have  made  up  their  minds.  I  don't  know  what 
they  will  do.  They  have  been  weeding  out  union 
men.  I  suppose  the  union  would  have  something  to 
say  about  it  otherwise.  I  don't  know  what  we  will 
do." 

"I  shouldn't  think  there  would  be  very  much  doubt 
as  to  what  to  do,"  said  Ellen. 

Granville  stared  at  her  over  his  shoulder  in  a  per 
plexed,  admiring  fashion.  "You  mean — ?"  he  asked. 

"I  shouldn't  think  there  would  be  any  doubt." 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  It  is  a  pretty  serious  thing  to 
get  out  of  work  in  midwinter  for  a  good  many  of  us, 
and  as  long  as  the  union  isn't  in  control,  other  men  can 
come  in.  I  don't  know." 

"I  know,"  said  Ellen. 

464 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"You  mean — ?" 

"  I  mean  that  I  do  not  think  it  right,  that  it  is  unjust, 
and  I  believe  in  resisting  injustice." 

"  Men  have  resisted  injustice  ever  since  the  Creation," 
isaid  Granville,  in  a  bitter  voice. 

"  Well,  resistance  can  continue  as  long  as  life  lasts/' 
returned  Ellen.  Just  then  came  a  fiercer  blast  than 
ever,  laden  with  a  stinging  volley  of  snow,  and  seemed 
to  sweep  the  words  from  the  girl's  mouth.  She  bent 
before  it  involuntarily,  and  the  conviction  forced  itself 
upon  her  that,  after  all,  resistance  to  injustice  might  be 
as  futile  as  resistance  to  storm,  that  injustice  might  be 
one  of  the  primal  forces  of  the  world,  and  one  of  the 
conditions  of  its  endurance,  and  yet  with  the  conviction 
came  the  renewed  resolution  to  resist. 

"  What  can  poor  men  do  against  capital  unless  they 
are  backed  up  by  some  labor  organization?"  asked 
Granville.  "And  I  don't  believe  there  are  a  dozen  in 
the  factory  who  belong  to  the  union.  There  has  been 
an  understanding,  without  his  ever  saying  so  that  I 
know  of,  that  the  old  boss  didn't  approve  of  it.  So 
lots  of  us  kept  out  of  it,  we  wanted  work  so  bad. 
What  can  we  do  against  such  odds?" 

"  When  right  is  on  your  side,  you  have  all  the  odds," 
said  Ellen,  looking  back  over  her  snow  -  powdered 
shoulder. 

"Then  you  would  strike?" 

"I  wouldn't  submit." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  how  the  boys  feel,"  said  Gran 
ville.  "I  suppose  we'll  have  to  talk  it  over." 

"I  shouldn't  need  to  talk  it  over,"  said  Ellen. 
"You've  gone  past  your  house,  Granville." 

"  I  ain't  going  to  let  you  go  home  alone  in  such  a  storm 
as  this,"  said  Granville,  in  a  tender  voice,  which  he 
tried  to  make  facetious.     "I  wouldn't  let  any  girl  go 
home  alone  in  such  a  storm." 
2  r,  465 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Ellen  stopped  short.  "  I  don't  want  you  to  go  home 
with  me,  thank  you,  Granville,"  she  said.  "Your 
mother  will  have  supper  ready,  and  I  can  go  just  as 
well  alone." 

"Ellen,  I  won't  let  you  go  alone,"  said  the  young 
man,  as  a  wilder  gust  came.  "Suppose  you  should 
fall  down?" 

"Fall  down!"  repeated  Ellen,  with  a  laugh,  but  her 
regard  of  the  young  man,  in  spite  of  her  rebuff,  was 
tender.  He  touched  her  with  his  unfailing  devotion; 
the  heavy  trudging  by  her  side  of  this  poor  man  meant, 
she  told  herself,  much  more  than  the  invitation  of  the 
rich  one  to  ride  behind  his  bays  in  his  luxurious  sleigh. 
This  meant  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  love.  She  held 
out  her  little,  mittened  hand  to  him. 

"Good-night,  Granville,"  she  said. 

Granville  caught  it  eagerly.  "Oh,  Ellen,"  he  mur 
mured. 

But  she  withdrew  her  hand  quickly.  "  We  have 
always  been  good  friends,  and  we  always  will  be,"  said 
she,  and  her  tone  was  unmistakable.  The  young  man 
shrank  back. 

"  Yes,  we  always  will,  Ellen,"  he  said,  in  a  faithful 
voice,  writh  a  note  of  pain  in  it. 

"Good-night,"  said  Ellen  again. 

"Good-night,"  responded  Granville,  and  turned  his 
plodding  back  on  the  girl  and  retraced  his  laborious 
steps  towards  his  own  home,  which  he  had  just  passed. 
There  come  times  for  all  souls  when  the  broad  light 
of  the  path  of  humanity  seems  to  pale  to  insignificance 
before  the  intensity  of  the  one  little  search-light  of  per 
sonality.  Granville  Joy  felt  as  if  the  eternal  problem 
of  the  rich  and  poor,  of  labor  and  capital,  of  justice  and 
equality,  was  as  nothing  before  the  desire  of  his  heart 
for  that  one  girl  who  was  disappearing  from  his  sight 
behind  the  veil  of  virgin  snow. 

466 


CHAPTER  L 

WHEN  Ellen  came  in  sight  of  her  house  that  night 
she  saw  her  father's  bent  figure  moving  down  the  path 
with  sidewise  motions  of  a  broom.  He  had  been  out 
at  short  intervals  all  the  afternoon,  that  she  should  not 
have  to  wade  through  drifts  to  the  door.  The  electric- 
light  shone  full  on  this  narrow,  cleared  track  and  the 
toiling  figure. 

"Hullo,  father!"  Ellen  called  out.  Andrew  turned, 
and  his  face  lit  with  love  and  welcome  and  solicitude. 

"Be  you  dreadful  snowy?"  he  asked. 

"Oh  no,  father,  not  very." 

"It's  an  awful  storm." 

"Pretty  bad,  but  I  got  along  all  right.  The  snow- 
plough  has  been  out." 

"Wait  a  minute  till  I  get  this  swept,"  said  Andrew, 
sweeping  violently  before  her. 

"You  needn't  have  bothered,  father,"  said  Ellen. 

"I  'ain't  anything  else  to  do,"  replied  Andrew,  in  a 
sad  voice. 

"There's  mother  watching,"  said  Ellen. 

"Yes,  she's  been  diggin'  at  them  wrappers  all  day." 

"  I  suppose  she  has,"  Ellen  returned,  in  a  bitter  tone. 
Her  father  stared  at  her.  Ellen  never  spoke  like  that. 
For  the  first  time  she  echoed  him  and  her  mother, 
Something  like  terror  came  over  him  at  the  sound  of  that 
familiar  note  of  his  own  life  from  this  younger  one. 
He  seemed  to  realize  dimly  that  a  taint  of  his  nature  had 
descended  upon  his  child. 

When  Ellen  entered  the  house,  the  warm  air  was  full 

467 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  savory  odors  of  toast  and  tea  and  cooking  meat  and 
vegetables. 

"You'd  better  go  right  up-stairs  and  put  on  a  dry 
dress,  Ellen/'  said  Fanny.  "I  put  your  blue  one  out 
on  your  bed,  and  your  shoes  are  warming  by  the  sit 
ting-room  stove.  I've  been  worrying  as  to  how  you 
were  going  to  get  home  all  day."  Then  she  stopped 
short  as  she  caught  sight  of  Ellen's  face.  "What  on 
earth  is  the  matter,  Ellen  Brewster?"  she  said. 

"Nothing/'  said  Ellen.     "Why?" 

"You  look  queer.     Has  anything  happened?" 

"Yes,  something  has  happened." 

"What?" 

Andrew  turned  pale.  He  stood  in  the  entry  with  his 
snowy  broom  in  hand,  staring  from  one  to  the  other. 

"Nothing  that  you  need  worry  about,"  said  Ellen. 
"I'll  tell  you  when  I  get  my  dress  changed." 

Ellen  pulled  off  her  rubbers,  and  went  up-stairs  to  her 
chamber.  Fanny  and  Andrew  stood  looking  at  each 
other. 

"You  don't  suppose —  '  whispered  Andrew. 

"Suppose  what?"  responded  Fanny,  sharply. 

They  continued  to  look  at  each  other.  Fanny  an 
swered  Andrew  as  if  he  had  spoken,  with  that  jealous 
pride  for  her  girl's  self-respect  which  possessed  her  even 
before  the  girl's  father. 

"Land,  it  ain't  that,"  said  she.  "You  wouldn't 
catch  Ellen  lookin'  as  if  anything  had  come  across  her 
for  such  a  thing  as  that." 

"No,  I  suppose  she  wouldn't,"  said  Andrew;  and  he 
actually  blushed  before  his  wife's  eyes. 

That  afternoon  Mrs.  Wetherhed  had  been  in,  and 
told  Fanny  that  she  had  heard  that  Robert  Lloyd  was 
to  be  married  to  Maud  Hemingway ;  and  both  Andrew 
and  Fanny  had  thought  of  that  as  the  cause  of  Ellen's 
changed  face. 

468 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  You'd  better  take  that  broom  out  into  the  shed,  and 
get  the  snow  off  yourself,  and  come  in  and  shut  the 
•fjdoor,"  Fanny  said,  shortly.  "  You're  colding  the  house 
iall  o£f,  and  Amabel  has  got  a  cold,  and  she's  sitting 
right  in  the  draught." 

"  All  right,"  replied  Andrew,  meekly,  though  Fanny 
I  had  herself  been  holding  the  sitting-room  door  open. 
In  those  days  Andrew  felt  below  his  moral  stature  as 
ihead  of  the  house.  Actually,  looking  at  Fanny,  who 
was  earning  her  small  share  towards  the  daily  bread, 
she  seemed  to  him  much  taller  than  he,  though  she  was 
a  head  shorter.  He  thought  so  little  of  himself,  he 
seemed  to  see  himself  as  through  the  wrong  end  of  a 
telescope.  Fanny  went  into  the  sitting  -  room  and 
shut  the  door  with  a  bang.  Amabel  did  not  look  up 
from  her  book.  She  was  reading  a  library  book  much 
beyond  her  years,  and  sniffing  pathetically  with  her 
cold.  Amabel  had  begun  to  discover  an  omnivorous 
taste  for  books,  which  stuck  at  nothing.  She  under 
stood  not  more  than  half  of  what  she  read,  but  seemed 
to  relish  it  like  indigestible  food. 

When  Ellen  came  down-stairs,  and  sat  beside  the 
coal  stove  to  change  her  shoes,  she  looked  at  the  book 
which  Amabel  was  reading.  "You  ought  not  to  read 
that  book,  dear,"  she  said.  "Let  Ellen  get  you  a  bet 
ter  one  for  a  little  girl  to-morrow." 

But  Amabel,  without  paying  the  slightest  heed  to 
Ellen's  words,  looked  up  at  her  with  amazement,  as  An 
drew  and  Fanny  had  done.  "What's  the  matter,  El 
len?"  she  asked,  in  her  little,  hoarse  voice. 

Fanny  and  Andrew,  who  had  just  entered,  stood 
waiting.  Ellen  bent  over  her  shoe,  drawing  in  the 
strings  firmly  and  evenly. 

"Mr.  Lloyd  has  reduced  the  wage-list,"  she  said. 

"How  much?"  asked  Andrew,  in  a  hoarse  voice. 

"Ten  per  cent." 

469 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  Andrew  and  Fanny  looked 
at  Ellen  like  people  who  are  uncertain  of  their  next 
move;  Amabel  stared  from  one  to  the  other  with  her 
weak,  watery  eyes.  Ellen  continued  to  lace  her  shoes. 

"What  do  you  think  about  it,  Ellen?"  asked  Andrew, 
almost  timidly. 

"I  know  of  only  one  thing  to  think,"  replied  Ellen, 
in  a  dogged  voice. 

As  she  spoke  she  pulled  the  tag  off  a  shoe-string  be 
cause  it  would  not  go  through  the  eyelet. 

"What  is  that?"  asked  Fanny,  in  a  hard  voice. 

"  I  think  it  is  cruelty  and  tyranny,"  said  Ellen,  pull 
ing  the  rough  end  of  the  string  through  the  eyelet. 

"I  suppose  the  times  are  pretty  hard,"  ventured  An 
drew  ;  but  Ellen  cut  him  short. 

"Robert  Lloyd  has  half  a  million,  which  has  been 
accumulated  by  the  labor  of  poor  men  in  prosperous 
times,"  said  she,  with  her  childlike  severity  and  piti- 
lessness.  "  There  is  no  question  about  the  matter." 

Then  Fanny  flung  all  self-interest  to  the  wind  and 
was  at  her  daughter's  side  like  a  whirlwind.  The  fact 
that  the  two  were  of  one  blood  was  never  so  strongly 
evident.  Red  spots  glowed  in  the  elder  woman's  cheeks 
and  her  black  eyes  blazed. 

"Ellen's  right,"  said  she;  "she's  right.  For  a  man 
worth  half  a  million  to  cut  down  the  wages  of  poor, 
hard-working  folks  in  midwinter  is  cruelty.  I  don't 
care  who  does  it." 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  said  Ellen. 

Fanny  opened  her  mouth  to  tell  Ellen  of  the  rumor 
concerning  Robert's  engagement  to  Maud  Hemingway, 
then  she  refrained,  for  some  reason  which  she  could 
not  analyze.  In  her  heart  she  did  not  believe  the  report 
to  be  true,  and  considered  the  telling  of  it  a  slight  to 
Ellen,  but  it  influenced  her  in  her  indignation  against 
Robert  for  the  wage-cutting. 

470 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What  are  they  going  to  do?"  asked  Andrew. 

"I  don't  know/'  replied  Ellen. 

"Did  he — young  Lloyd — talk  to  the  men?" 

"No;  notices  were  tacked  up  all  over  the  shop." 

"That  was  the  way  his  uncle  would  have  done," 
;said  Andrew,  in  a  curious  voice  of  bitterness  and  re 
spect. 

"So  you  don't  know  what  they  are  going  to  do?" 
said  Fanny. 

"No." 

"Well,  I  know  what  I  would  do,"  said  Fanny.  "I 
never  would  give  in,  if  I  starved — never!" 


CHAPTER  LI 

WHEN  Ellen  started  for  the  factory  the  next  morn 
ing  the  storm  had  not  ceased;  the  roads  were  very 
heavy,  although  the  snow-plough  had  been  out  at  in 
tervals  all  night,  and  there  was  a  struggling  line  of 
shovelling  men  along  the  car-track,  but  the  cars  were 
still  unable  to  penetrate  the  drifts.  When  Ellen  passed 
her  grandmother's  house  the  old  woman  tapped  sharp 
ly  on  the  window  and  motioned  her  back  frantically 
with  one  bon;T  hand.  The  window  was  frozen  to  the 
sill  with  the  snow,  and  she  could  not  raise  it.  Ellen 
shook  her  head,  smiling.  Her  grandmother  contin 
ued  to  wave  her  back,  the  lines  of  forbidding  anxiety 
in  her  old  face  as  strongly  marked  as  an  etching  in 
the  window  frame.  This  love,  which  had  at  once 
coerced  and  fondled  the  girl  since  her  birth,  was  very 
precious  to  her.  This  protection,  which  she  was 
forced  to  repel,  smote  her  like  a  pain. 

"Poor  old  grandmother!"  she  thought;  "there  she 
will  worry  about  me  all  day  because  I  have  gone  out 
in  the  storm."  She  turned  back  and  waved  her  hand 
and  nodded  laughingly;  but  the  old  woman  continued 
that  anxiously  imperative  backward  motion  until  El 
len  was  out  of  sight. 

Ellen  walked  in  the  car-track,  as  did  everybody  else, 
that  being  better  cleared  than  the  rest  of  the  road.  She 
was  astonished  that  she  heard  nothing  of  the  cut  in 
wages  from  the  men.  There  seemed  to  be  no  excite 
ment  at  all.  They  merely  trudged  heavily  along,  their 
whitening  bodies  bent  before  the  storm.  There  was 

47^ 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

an  unusual  doggedness  about  this  march  to  the  factory 
this  morning,  but  that  was  all.  Ellen  returned  the 
muttered  greeting  of  several,  and  walked  along  in  si 
lence  with  the  rest.  Even  when  Abby  Atkins  joined 
her  there  was  little  said.  Ellen  asked  for  Maria,  and 
Abby  replied  that  she  had  taken  more  cold  yesterday, 
and  could  not  speak  aloud;  then  relapsed  into  silence, 
making  her  way  through  the  snow  with  a  sort  of  taci 
turn  endurance.  Ellen  looked  at  the  struggling  pro 
cession  of  which  she  was  a  part,  all  slanting  with  the 
slant  of  the  storm,  and  a  fancy  seized  her  that  rebellion 
and  resistance  were  hopeless,  that  those  parallel  lines 
of  yielding  to  the  onslaughts  of  fate  were  as  inevitable 
as  life  itself,  one  of  its  conditions.  Men  could  not  help 
walking  that  way  when  the  bitter  storm- wind  was  blow 
ing  ;  they  could  not  help  living  that  way  when  fate  was 
in  array  against  their  progress.  Then,  thinking  so, 
a  mightier  spirit  of  revolt  than  she  had  ever  known 
awoke  within  her.  She,  as  she  walked,  straightened 
herself.  She  leaned  not  one  whit  before  the  drive  of 
the  storm.  She  advanced  with  no  yielding  in  her,  her 
brave  face  looking  ahead  through  the  white  blur  of 
snow  with  a  confidence  which  was  almost  exultation. 

"What  do  you  think  the  men  will  do?"  she  said  to 
Abby  when  they  came  in  sight  of  Lloyd's,  shaggy  with 
fringes  and  wreaths  and  overhanging  shelvings  of 
snow,  roaring  with  machinery,  with  the  steady  stream 
of  labor  pouring  in  the  door. 

"Do?"  repeated  Abby,  almost  listlessly.  "Do  about 
what?" 

"  About  the  cut  in  wages?" 

Abby  turned  on  her  with  sudden  fire.  "Oh,  my 
God,  what  can  they  do,  Ellen  Brewster?"  she  demanded. 
"Haven't  they  got  to  live?  Hasn't  Lloyd  got  it  all 
his  own  way?  How  are  men  to  live  in  weather  like 
this  without  work?  Bread  without  butter  is  better 

473 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

than  none  at  all,  and  life  at  any  cost  is  better  than 
death  for  them  you  love.  What  can  they  do?" 

"  It  seems  to  me  there  is  only  one  thing  to  do/' 
replied  Ellen. 

Abby  stared  at  her  wonderingly.  "You  don't 
mean — "  she  said,  as  they  climbed  up  the  stairs. 

"  I  mean  I  would  do  anything,  at  whatever  cost  to 
myself,  to  defeat  injustice,"  said  Ellen,  in  a  loud,  clear 
voice. 

Several  men  turned  and  looked  back  at  her  and 
laughed  bitterly. 

"  It's  easy  talking,"  said  one  to  another. 

"That's  so,"  returned  the  other. 

The  people  all  settled  to  their  work  as  usual.  One 
of  the  foremen  (Dennison),  who  was  anxious  to  curry 
favor  with  his  employer,  reported  to  him  in  an  under 
tone  in  the  office  that  everything  was  quiet.  Robert 
nodded  easily.  He  had  not  anticipated  anything  else. 
In  the  course  of  the  morning  he  looked  into  the  room 
where  Ellen  was  employed,  and  saw  with  relief  and  con 
cern  her  fair  head  before  her  machine.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  he  could  not  bear  it  one  instant  longer  to  have 
her  working  in  this  fashion,  that  he  must  lift  her  out 
of  it.  He  still  tingled  with  his  rebuff  of  the  night  be 
fore,  but  he  had  never  loved  her  so  well,  for  the  idea 
that  the  cut  in  wages  affected  her  relation  to  him  never 
occurred  to  him.  As  he  walked  through  the  room 
none  of  the  workers  seemed  to  notice  him,  but  worked 
with  renewed  energy.  He  might  have  been  invisible 
for  all  the  attention  he  seemed  to  excite.  He  looked 
with  covert  tenderness  at  the  back  of  Ellen's  head, 
and  passed  on.  He  reflected  that  he  had  adopted 
the  measure  of  wage-cutting  with  no  difficulty  what 
ever. 

"All  it  needs  is  a  little  firmness,"  he  thought,  with 
a  boyish  complacency  in  his  own  methods.  "Now  I 

474 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

can  keep  on  with  the  factory,  and  no  turning  the  poor 
people  adrift  in  midwinter." 

At  noon  Robert  put  on  his  fur-lined  coat  and  left  the 
factory,  springing  into  the  sleigh,  which  had  drawn 
up  before  the  door  with  a  flurry  of  bells.  He  had  an  er 
rand  in  the  next  town  that  afternoon,  and  was  not  go 
ing  to  return.  When  the  sleigh  had  slid  swiftly  out  of 
sight  through  the  storm,  which  was  lightening  a  little, 
the  people  in  the  office  turned  to  one  another  with  a  curi 
ous  expression  of  libert}7,  but  even  then  little  was  said. 
Nellie  Stone  was  at  the  desk  eating  her  luncheon;  Ed 
Flynn  and  Dennison  and  one  of  the  lasters,  who  had 
looked  in  and  then  stepped  in  when  he  saw  Lloyd  was 
gone,  were  there.  The  laster,  who  was  young  and 
coarsely  handsome,  had  an  admiration  for  the  pretty 
girl  at  the  desk.  Presently  she  addressed  him,  with 
her  mouth  full  of  apple-pie. 

"Say,  George,  what  are  you  fellows  going  to  do?" 
she  asked. 

Dennison  glanced  keenly  from  one  to  the  other; 
Flynn  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  out  of  the 
window. 

"  Looks  as  if  it  was  clearing  up,"  he  remarked. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Nellie  Stone 
again,  with  a  coquettish  flirt  of  her  blond  fluff  of  hair. 

"  Grin  and  bear  it,  I  s'pose,"  replied  the  young  laster, 
with  an  adoring  look  at  her. 

"  My  land!  grin  and  bear  a  cut  of  ten  per  cent.  ?  Well, 
I  don't  think  you've  got  much  spunk,  I  must  say.  Why 
don't  you  strike?" 

"Who's  going  to  feed  us?"  replied  the  laster,  in  a 
tender  voice. 

"Feed  you?  Oh,  you  don't  want  much  to  eat.  Join 
the  union.  It's  ridiculous  so  few  of  the  men  in  Lloyd's 
belong  to  it,  anyway;  and  then  the  union  will  feed  you, 
won't  it?" 

475 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  The  union  did  not  do  what  it  promised  in  the  Scar- 
boro  strike,"  interposed  Dennison,  curtly. 

"  Oh,  we  all  know  where  you  are,  Frank  Dennison/' 
said  the  girl,  with  a  soft  roll  of  her  blue  eyes.  "  Besides, 
it's  easy  to  talk  when  you  aren't  hit.  Your  wages 
aren't  cut.  But  here  is  George  May  here,  he's  in  a 
different  box." 

"He's  got  nobody  dependent  on  him,  anyway,"  said 
Flynn. 

"If  I  wasn't  going  to  get  married  I'd  strike,"  cried 
the  young  man,  with  a  fervent  glance  at  the  girl.  She 
colored,  half  pleased,  half  angry,  and  the  other  men 
chuckled.  She  took  another  bite  of  pie  to  conceal  her 
confusion.  She  preferred  Flynn  to  the  laster,  and 
while  she  was  not  averse  to  proving  to  the  former  the 
triumph  of  her  charms  over  another  man,  did  not  like 
too  much  concessions. 

"  You'd  better  go  and  eat  your  dinner,  George  May," 
she  said,  in  her  sweet,  shrill  voice.  "First  thing  you 
know  the  whistle  will  blow.  Here's  yours,  Ed."  With 
that  she  pulled  out  a  leather  bag  from  under  the  desk, 
where  she  had  volunteered  to  place  it  for  warmth  and 
safety  against  the  coil  of  steam-pipes. 

"  I  don't  believe  your  coffee  is  very  cold,  Ed,"  said 
she. 

The  laster  glared  from  one  to  the  other  jealously. 
Dennison  went  towards  a  shelf  where  he1  had  stored 
away  his  luncheon,  when  he  stopped  suddenly  and 
listened,  as  did  the  others.  There  came  a  great  up 
roar  of  applause  from  the  next  room  beyond.  Then 
it  subsided,  and  a  girl's  clear,  loud  voice  was  heard. 

"  What  is  going  on  ?"  cried  Nellie  Stone.  She  jumped 
up  and  ran  to  the  door,  still  eating  her  pie,  and  the  men 
followed  her. 

At  the  end  of  one  of  the  work-rooms,  backed  against 
a  snowy  window,  clung  about  with  shreds  of  the  driv- 

476 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

ng  storm,  stood  Ellen  Brewster,  with  some  other  girls 
iround  her,  and  a  few  men  on  the  outskirts,  and  a  steady, 
;urious  movement  of  all  the  other  workmen  towards 
:aer,  as  of  iron  filings  towards  a  magnet,  and  she  was 
;alking. 

Her  voice  was  quite  audible  all  over  the  great  room. 
itt  was  low-pitched,  but  had  a  wonderful  carrying  qual- 
iy,  and  there  was  something  marvellous  in  its  abso 
lute  confidence. 

"  If  you  men  will  do  nothing,  and  say  nothing,  it  is 
ijtime  for  a  girl  to  say  and  act/'  she  proclaimed.  "I 
did  not  dream  for  a  minute  that  you  would  yield  to  this 
cut  in  wages.  Why  should  you  have  your  wages  cut?" 

"The  times  are  pretty  hard/'  said  a  doubtful  voice 
among  her  auditors. 

"What  if  the  times  are  hard?  Wliat  is  that  to  you? 
Have  you  made  them  hard?  It  is  the  great  capitalists 
who  have  made  them  hard  by  shifting  the  wealth  too 
much  to  one  side.  They  are  the  ones  who  should  suffer, 
| not  you.  What  have  you  done,  except  come  here  morn 
ing  after  morning  in  cold  or  heat,  rain  or  shine,  and 
work  with  all  your  strength?  They  who  have  precip 
itated  the  hard  times  are  the  ones  who  should  bear  the 
brunt  of  them.  Your  work  is  the  same  nowr  as  it  was 
then,  the  strain  on  your  flesh  and  blood  and  muscles 
is  the  same,  your  pay  should  be  the  same." 

"That's  so,"  said  Abby  Atkins,  in  a  reluctant,  surly 
fashion. 

"That's  so,"  said  another  girl,  and  another.  Then 
there  was  a  fusilade  of  hand-claps  started  by  the  girls, 
and  somewhat  feebly  echoed  by  the  men. 

One  or  two  men  looked  rather  uneasily  back  tow 
ards  Dennison  and  Fhrnn  and  two  more  foremen  who 
had  come  forward. 

"It  ain't  as  though  we  had  something  to  fall  back 
on/'  said  a  man's  grumbling  voice.  "  It's  easy  to  talk 

477 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

when  you  'ain't  got  a  wife  and  five  children  dependent 
on  you." 

"  That's  so,"  said  another  man,  doggedly. 

"That  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  said  Ellen,  firm 
ly.  "  We  can  all  club  together,  and  keep  the  wolf  from 
the  door  for  those  who  are  hardost  pressed  for  a  while ; 
and  as  for  me,  if  I  were  a  man — ' 

She  paused  a  minute.  When  she  spoke  again  her 
voice  was  full  of  childlike  enthusiasm;  it  seemed  to 
ring  like  a  song. 

"If  I  were  a  man,"  said  she,  "I  would  go  out  in  the 
street  and  dig — I  would  beg,  I  would  steal — before  I 
would  yield — I,  a  free  man  in  a  free  country — to 
tyranny  like  this!" 

There  was  a  great  round  of  applause  at  that.  Den- 
nison  scowled  and  said  something  in  a  low  voice  to 
another  foreman  at  his  side.  Flynn  laughed,  with  a 
perplexed,  admiring  look  at  Ellen. 

"  The  question  is,"  said  Tom  Peel,  slouching  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  throng,  and  speaking  in  an  impertur 
bable,  compelling,  drawling  voice,  "whether  the  free 
men  in  the  free  country  are  going  to  kick  themselves 
free,  or  into  tighter  places,  by  kicking." 

"  If  you  have  got  to  stop  to  count  the  cost  of  bravery 
and  standing  up  for  your  rights,  there  would  be  no 
bravery  in  the  world,"  returned  Ellen,  with  disdain. 

"Oh,  I  am  ready  to  kick,"  said  Peel,  with  his  mask- 
like  smile. 

"  So  am  I,"  said  Granville  Joy,  in  a  loud  voice.  Amos 
Lee  came  rushing  through  the  crowd  to  Ellen's  side. 
He  had  been  eating  his  dinner  in  another  room,  and 
had  just  heard  what  was  going  on.  He  opened  his 
mouth  with  a  motion  as  of  letting  loose  a  flood  of  rant 
ing,  but  somebody  interposed.  John  Sargent,  bulky 
and  irresistible  in  his  steady  resolution,  put  him  aside 
and  stood  before  him. 

47* 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"Look  here/'  he  said  to  them  all.     "There  may  be 

truth  in  what  Miss  Brewster  says,  but  we  must  not 

::act  hastily ;  there  is  too  much  at  stake.     Let  us  appoint 

;-a  committee  and  go  to  see  Mr.  Lloyd  this  evening,  and 

remonstrate  on  the  cutting  of  the  wages."     He  turned 

to  Ellen  in  a  kindly,  half-paternal  fashion.     "Don't 

'you  see  it  would  be  better?"  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him  doubtfully,  her  cheeks  glowing, 
teller  eyes  like  stars.     She  was  freedom  and  youth  in 
carnate,  and  rebellious  against  all  which  she  conceived 
as  wrong  and  tyrannical.     She  could  hardly  admit,  in 
.her  fire  of  enthusiasm,  of  pure  indignation,  of  any  com- 
••  promise  or  arbitration.    All  the  griefs  of  her  short  life,  she 
Jhad  told  herself,  were  directly  traceable  to  the  wrongs  of 
gthe  system  of  labor  and  capital,  and  were  awakening 
i  within  her  as  freshly  as  if  they  had  just  happened. 

She  remembered  her  father,  exiled  in  his  prime  from 
his  place  in  the  working  world  by  this  system  of  ar 
bitrary  employment;  she  remembered  her  aunt  in  the 

•  asylum;  poor  little  Amabel;  her  own  mother  toiling 
j beyond  her  strength  on  underpaid  work;  Maria  cough 
ing  her  life  away.     She  remembered  her  own  life  twisted 

linto  another  track  from  the  one  which  she  should 
|  have  followed,  and  there  was  for  the  time  very  little 
reason  or  justice  in  her.  That  injustice  which  will  arise 
ijto  meet  its  kind  in  equal  combat  had  arisen  in  her  heart. 
i| Still,  she  yielded.  "  Perhaps  you  are  right,"  she  said  to 
;!  Sargent.  She  had  always  liked  John  Sargent,  and 
|  she  respected  him. 

"I  am  sure  it  is  the  best  course,"  he  said  to  her,  still 
i;  in  that  low,  confidential  voice. 

It  ended  in  a  committee  of  four — John  Sargent,  Amos 

•  Lee,  Tom  Peel,  and  one  of  the  older  lasters,  a  very  re- 
i  spectable  man,  a  deacon  in  the  Baptist  Church — being 
li  appointed  to  wait  on  Robert  Lloyd  that  evening. 

When  the  one-o'clock  whistle  blew,  Ellen  went  back 

479 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  her  machine.  She  was  very  pale,  but  she  was  con 
scious  of  a  curious  steadiness  of  all  her  nerves.  Abby 
leaned  towards  her,  and  spoke  low  in  the  roar  of  wheels. 

"I'll  back  you  up,  if  I  die  for  it,"  she  said. 

But  Sadie  Peel,  on  the  other  side,  spoke  quite  openly, 
with  a  laugh  and  shrug  of  her  shoulders.  "  Land/' 
she  said,  "  father'll  be  with  you.  He's  bound  to  strike. 
He  struck  when  he  was  in  McGuire's.  Catch  father 
givin'  up  anything.  But  as  for  me,  I  wish  you'd  all 
slow  up  an'  stick  to  work,  if  you  do  get  a  little  less.  If 
we  quit  work  I  can't  have  a  nearseal  cape,  and  I've  set 
my  heart  on  a  nearseal  cape  this  winter." 


CHAPTER  LII 

ELLEN  resolved  that  she  would  say  as  little  as  pos 
sible  about  the  trouble  at  home  that  night.  She  did 
not  wish  her  parents  to  worry  over  it  until  it  was  set 
tled  in  one  wray  or  another. 

When  her  mother  asked  what  they  had  done  about 
the  wage-cutting,  she  replied  that  a  committee  had  been 
appointed  to  wait  on  Mr.  Lloyd  that  evening,  and  talk 
it  over  with  him ;  then  she  said  nothing  more. 

"  He  won't  give  in  if  he's  like  his  uncle,"  said  Fanny. 

Ellen  went  on  eating  her  supper  in  silence.  Her 
father  glanced  at  her  with  sharp  solicitude. 

"Maybe  he  will,"  said  he. 

"No,  he  won't,"  returned  Fanny. 

Ellen  was  very  pale  and  her  eyes  were  bright.  After 
supper  she  went  to  the  window  and  pressed  her  face 
against  the  glass,  shielding  her  eyes  from  the  in-door 
light,  and  saw  that  the  storm  had  quite  ceased.  The 
stars  were  shining  and  the  white  boughs  of  the  trees 
lashing  about  in  the  northwest  wind.  She  went  into 
the  entry,  where  she  had  hung  her  hat  and  coat,  and 
began  putting  them  on. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Ellen?"  asked  her  mother. 

"Just  down  to  Abby's  a  minute." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you  are  goin'  out  again 
in  this  snow,  Ellen  Brewster?  I  should  think  you 
were  crazy."  When  Fanny  said  crazy,  she  suddenly 
started  and  shuddered  as  if  she  had  struck  herself, 
She  thought  of  Eva.  Always  the  possibility  of  a  like 
doom  was  in  her  own  mind. 
2  H  4.81 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"It  has  stopped  snowing,  mother,"  Ellen  said. 

"Stopped  snowing!  What  if  it  has?  The  roads 
ain't  cleared.  You  can't  get  down  to  Abby  Atkins's 
without  gettin'  wet  up  to  your  knees.  I  should  think 
if  you  got  into  the  house  after  such  a  storm  you'd 
have  sense  enough  to  stay  in.  I've  worried  just  about 
enough." 

Ellen  took  off  her  coat  and  hat  and  hung  them  up 
again.  "Well,  I  won't  go  if  you  feel  so,  mother/' she 
said,  patiently. 

"  It  seems  as  if  you  might  get  along  without  seein' 
Abby  Atkins  till  to-morrow  mornin',  when  you'd  seen 
her  only  an  hour  ago,"  Fanny  went  on,  in  the  high, 
nagging  tone  which  she  often  adopted  with  those  whom 
she  loved  the  dearest. 

"Yes,  I  can,"  said  Ellen.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she 
must  see  somebody  with  whom  she  could  talk  about 
the  trouble  in  the  factory,  but  she  yielded.  There 
was  always  with  the  girl  a  perfect  surface  docility,  as 
that  she  seemed  to  have  no  resistance,  but  a  little  way 
down  was  a  rock -bed  of  firmness.  She  lighted  her 
lamp,  and  took  her  library  book  and  went  up-stairs  to 
bed  to  read.  But  she  could  not  read,  and  she  could  not 
sleep  when  she  had  put  aside  her  book  and  extinguished 
her  lamp.  She  could  think  of  nothing  except  Robert, 
and  what  he  would  say  to  the  committee.  She  lay 
awake  all  night  thinking  of  it.  Ellen  was  a  girl  who 
was  capable  of  the  most  devoted  love,  and  the  most 
intense  dissent  and  indignation  towards  the  same  per 
son.  She  could  love  in  spite  of  faults,  and  she  could 
see  faults  in  spite  of  love.  She  thought  of  Robert 
Lloyd  as  of  the  one  human  soul  whom  she  loved  best 
out  of  the  whole  world,  whom  she  put  before  everybody 
else,  even  her  own  self,  and  she  also  thought  of  him  with 
a  wrath  which  was  pitiless  and  uncompromising,  and 
which  seemed  to  tear  her  own  heart  to  pieces,  tor  one 

482 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

cannot  be  wroth  with  love  without  a  set-back  of  torture. 

I"  If  he  does  not  give  in  and  raise  the  wages,  I  shall  hate 

him,"  thought  Ellen;  and  her  heart  stung  her  as  if  at 

i  the  touch  of  a  hot  iron,  and  then  she  could  have  struck 

herself  for  the  supposition  that  he  would  not  give  in. 

("He   must,"  she  told  herself,  with  a  great  fervor  of 

ilove.     "He  must." 

But  when  she  went  down  to  breakfast  the  next  morn- 
|ing  her  mother  stared  at  her  sharply. 

"Ellen  Brewster,   what  is  the  matter  with  you?" 
;  she  cried. 

"Nothing.     Why?" 

"Nothing!     You  look  like  a  ghost." 

"  I  feel  perfectly  well, "  said  Ellen.     She  made  an  effort 

g  to  eat  as  much  breakfast  as  usual    in  order  that  her 

mother  should  not  suspect  that  she  was  troubled.    When 

at  last  she  set  out  for  the  factory,  in  the  early  morning 

dusk,  she  was  chilled  and  trembling  with  excitement. 

The  r-torm  had  quite  ceased,  and  there  was  a  pale 
rose-and-violet  dawn-light  in  the  east,  and  presently 
came  effects  like  golden-feathered  shafts  shooting  over 
the  sky.  The  road  was  alive  with  shovelling  men, 
construction-cars  of  the  railroad  company  were  labor 
ing  back  and  forth  to  clear  the  tracks,  householders 
were  making  their  way  from  their  doors  to  their  gates, 
clearing  their  paths,  lifting  up  the  snow  in  great,  glitter 
ing,  blue-white  blocks  on  their  clumsy  shovels.  Every 
where  were  the  factory  employes  hastening  to  their 
labor;  the  snow  was  dropping  from  the  overladen  tree 
branches  in  great  blobs ;  there  was  an  incessant,  shrill 
chatter  of  people,  and  occasional  shouts.  It  was  the' 
rally  of  mankind  after  a  defeat  by  a  primitive  force  of 
nature.  It  was  the  eternal  reassertion  of  human  life 
and  a  higher  organization  over  the  elemental.  Men 
who  had  walked  doggedly  the  morning  before  now 
moved  with  a  spring  of  alacrity,  although  the  road  was 

483 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

very  heavy.  There  was  a  new  light  in  their  eyes ;  their 
cheeks  glowed.  Ellen  had  no  doubt  whatever  that  if 
Robert  Lloyd  had  not  yielded  the  attitude  of  the  em 
ploye's  of  Lloyd's  would  be  one  of  resistance.  She 
herself  seemed  to  breathe  in  resistance  to  tyranny,  and 
.strength  for  the  right  in  every  breath  of  the  clear,  crisp 
morning  air.  She  felt  as  if  she  could  trample  on  her 
self  and  her  own  weakness,  for  the  sake  of  justice  and 
the  inalienable  good  of  her  kind,  with  as  little  hesitation 
as  she  trampled  on  the  creaking  snow.  Yet  she  trem 
bled  with  that  deadly  chill  before  a  sense  of  impending 
fate.  When  she  returned  the  salutations  of  her  friends 
on  the  road  she  felt  that  her  lips  were  stiff. 

"  You  look  dreadful  queer,  Ellen,"  Abby  Atkins  said, 
anxiously,  \vhen  she  joined  her.  Maria  also  was  out 
that  morning. 

"  Have  you  heard  what  they  are  going  to  do?"  Ellen 
asked,  in  a  sort  of  breathless  fashion. 

"You  mean  about  the  wage-cutting?  Don't  look  so, 
Ellen." 

Maria  pressed  close  to  Ellen,  and  slid  her  thin  arm 
through  hers. 

"Yes,"  said  Ellen.  "What  did  John  Sargent  say 
when  he  got  home  last  night?" 

Abby  hesitated  a  second,  looking  doubtfully  at  Ellen. 
"  I  don't  see  that  there  is  any  need  for  you  to  take  all 
this  so  much  to  heart,"  she  said. 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"Well,"  Abby  replied,  reluctantly,  "I  believe  Mr. 
Lloyd  wouldn't  give  in.  Ellen  Brewster,  for  Heaven's 
sake,  don't  look  so!" 

Ellen  walked  on,  her  head  high,  her  face  as  white 
as  death.  Maria  clung  closely  to  her,  her  own  lips 
quivering. 

"  What  are  the  men  going  to  do,  do  you  think?"  asked 
Ellen,  presently,  in  a  low  voice. 

484 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

"  I  don't  know/'  replied  Abby.  "  John  Sargent  seems 
to  think  they'll  give  in.  He  says  he  doesn't  know 
what  else  they  can  do.  The  times  are  hard.  I  believe 
Amos  Lee  and  Tom  Peel  are  for  striking,  but  he  says 
he  doesn't  believe  the  men  will  support  them.  The 
amount  of  it  all  is,  a  man  with  money  has  got  it  all  his 
own  way.  It's  like  fighting  with  bare  hands  to  oppose 
him,  and  getting  yourself  cut,  and  not  hurting  him  at 
all.  lie's  got  all  the  weapons.  We  simply  can't  go 
without  work  all  winter.  It  is  better  to  do  with  less 
than  with  nothing  at  all.  What  can  a  man  like  Willy 
Jones  do  if  he  hasn't  any  work?  He  and  his  mother 
would  actually  suffer.  What  could  we  do?" 

"  I  don't  think  we  ought  to  think  so  much  about 
that,"  said  Ellen. 

"  What  do  you  think  we  ought  to  think  about,  for 
goodness'  sake?" 

"  Whether  we  are  doing  right  or  not,  whether  we  are 
furthering  the  cause  of  justice  and  humanity,  or  hin 
dering  it.  Whether  it  is  for  good  in  the  long  run  or 
not.  There  have  always  been  martyrs;  I  don't  see 
why  it  is  any  harder  for  us  to  be  martyrs  than  for  those 
we  read  about." 

Sadie  Peel  came  pressing  up  behind  eagerly,  her 
cheeks  glowing,  holding  up  her  dress,  and  displaying 
a  cheap  red  petticoat.  "  Ellen  Brewster,"  she  exclaimed, 
"  if  you  dare  say  anything  more  to-day  I'm  goin'  to  talk. 
Father  is  tearing,  though  he  goes  around  looking  as  if 
he  wouldn't  jump  at  a  cannon-ball.  Do,  for  Heaven's 
sake,  keep  still;  and  if  you  can't  get  what  you  want, 
take  what  you  can  get.  I  ain't  goin'  to  be  cheated  out 
of  my  nearseal  cape,  nohow." 

"  Sadie  Peel,  you  make  me  tired/'  cried  Abby  At 
kins.  "I  don't  say  that  I'm  striking,  but  I'd  strike 
for  all  a  nearseal  cape.  I'm  ashamed  of  you." 

"I  don't  care  if  you  be,"  said  the  girl,  tossing  her 
485 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

head.  "A  nearseal  cape  means  as  much  to  me  as 
some  other  things  to  3'ou.  I  want  Ellen  Brewster  to 
hold  her  tongue/' 

"Ellen  Brewster  will  hold  her  tongue  or  not,  just 
as  she  has  a  mind  to,"  responded  Abby,  with  a  snap. 
She  did  not  like  Sadie  Peel. 

"  Oh,  stick  up  for  her  if  you  want  to,  and  get  us  all 
into  trouble." 

"  I  shall  stick  up  for  her,  you  can  be  mighty  sure  of 
that,"  declared  Abby. 

Ellen  walked  on  as  if  she  heard  nothing  of  it  at  all, 
with  little  Maria  clinging  closely  to  her.  Robert  Lloyd 
got  out  of  his  sleigh  and  went  up-stairs  just  before  they 
reached  the  factory,  and  she  heard  a  very  low,  subdued 
mutter  of  execration. 

"  They  don't  mean  to  strike,"  she  told  herself.  "  They 
mean  to  submit." 

All  went  to  their  tasks  as  usual.  In  a  minute  after 
the  whistle  blew  the  great  pile  was  in  the  full  hum  of 
labor.  Ellen  stood  for  a  few  moments  at  her  machine, 
then  she  left  it  deliberately,  and  made  her  way  down 
the  long  room  to  where  John  Sargent  stood  at  his  bench 
cutting  shoes,  with  a  swift  faithfulness  born  of  long 
practice.  She  pressed  close  to  him,  while  the  men 
around  stared. 

"What  is  going  to  be  done?"  she  asked,  in  a  low 
voice. 

Sargent  turned  and  looked  at  her  in  a  troubled  fash 
ion,  and  spoke  in  a  pacific,  soothing  tone,  as  her  father 
might  have  done.  He  was  much  older  than  Ellen. 

"Now  look  here,  child,"  he  said,  "I  don't  dare  take 
the  responsibility  of  urging  all  these  men  into  starva 
tion  this  kind  of  weather.  The  times  are  hard.  Lloyd 
has  some  reason — " 

Ellen  walked  away  from  him  swiftly  and  went  to 
the  row  of  lasting-machines  where  Amos  Lee  and  Tom 

486 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Peel  stood.     She  walked   up  to  them  and  spoke  in  a 
loud,  clear  voice. 

"You  are  not  going  to  give  in?"  said  she.  "You 
don't  mean  to  give  in?" 

Lee  turned  and  gave  her  one  stare,  and  left  his 
machine. 

"  Not  another  stitch  of  work  will  I  do  under  this  new 
wage-list,  so  help  me,  God!"  he  proclaimed. 

Tom  Peel  stood  for  a  second  like  an  automaton,  star 
ing  at  them  both.  Then  he  turned  his  back  to  his  post. 

"  I'm  with  ye,"  he  said. 

The  lasters,  for  some  occult  reason,  were  always  the 
most  turbulent  element  in  Lloyd's.  In  less  than  three 
minutes  the  enthusiasm  of  revolt  had  spread,  and  every 
laster  had  left  his  machine.  In  a  half-hour  more  there 
was  an  exodus  of  workmen  from  Lloyd's.  There  were 
very  few  left  in  the  factory.  Among  them  were  John 
Sargent,  the  laster  who  was  a  deacon  and  had  formed 
one  of  the  consulting  committee,  Sadie  Peel,  who  wanted 
her  nearseal  cape,  and  Mamie  Brady,  who  would  do 
nothing  which  she  thought  would  displease  the  fore 
man,  Flynn. 

"  If  father's  mind  to  be  such  a  fool,  it's  no  reason  why 
I  should,"  said  Sadie  Peel,  stitching  determinedly  away. 
Mamie  Brady  looked  at  Flynn,  when  he  came  up  to 
her,  with  a  gentle,  wheedling  smile.  There  was  no  one 
near,  and  she  fancied  that  he  might  steal  a  kiss.  But 
instead  he  looked  at  her,  frowning. 

"No  use  you  tying  away  any  longer,  Mamie/'  he 
said.  "The  strike's  on/' 

487 


CHAPTER  LIII 

THAT  was  one  of  the  strangest  days  which  Ellen 
had  ever  passed.  The  enforced  idleness  gave  her  an 
indefinite  sense  of  guilt.  She  tried  to  assist  her  mother 
about  the  household  tasks,  then  she  tried  to  sew  on  the 
wrappers,  but  she  was  awkward  about  it,  frcm  long 
disuse. 

"  Do  take  your  book  and  sit  down  and  read  and  rest 
a  little,  now  you've  got  a  chance/'  said  Fanny,  with 
sharp  solicitude. 

She  said  never  one  word  concerning  it  to  Ellen,  but 
all  the  time  she  thought  how  Ellen  had  probably  lost 
her  lover.  It  was  really  doubtful  which  suffered  the 
more  that  day,  the  mother  or  the  daughter.  Fanny, 
entirely  faithful  to  her  own  husband,  had  yet  that  strange 
vicarious  affection  for  her  daughter's  lover,  and  a  reali 
zation  of  her  state  of  mind,  of  which  a  mother  alone  is 
capable.  It  is  like  a  cord  of  birth  which  is  never  sev 
ered.  Not  one  shadow  of  sad  reflection  passed  over 
the  bright  enthusiastic  face  of  the  girl  but  was  passed 
on,  as  if  driven  by  some  wind  of  spirit,  over  the  face  of 
the  older  woman.  She  reflected  Ellen  entirely. 

As  for  Andrew,  his  anxiety  was  as  tender,  and  less 
subtle.  He  did  not  understand  so  clearly,  but  he  suffer 
ed  more.  He  was  clumsy  \\iin  this  mystery  of  woman 
hood,  but  he  was  unremitting  in  his  efforts  to  do  some 
thing  for  the  girl.  Once  he  tiptoed  up  to  Fanny  and 
whispered,  when  Ellen  was  in  the  next  room,  that  he 
hoped  she  hadn't  made  any  mistake,  that  it  seemed  to 
him  she  looked  pretty  pale. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Mistake?"  cried  Fanny,  tossing  her  head,  and 
staring  at  him  proudly.  "Haven't  you  got  any  spirit, 
and  you  a  man,  Andrew  Brewster?" 

"  I  ain't  thinking  about  myself,"  said  Andrew. 

And  he  was  quite  right.  Andrew,  left  to  himself 
and  his  purely  selfish  interests,  could  have  struck  with 
the  foremost.  He  would  never  have  considered  him 
self  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  a  conscientious 
struggle  against  injustice,  though  he  was  so  prone  to 
look  upon  both  sides  of  an.  argument  that  his  decision 
would  have  been  necessarily  slow;  but  here  was  Ellen 
to  consider,  and  she  was  more  than  himself.  While 
he  had  been,  in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  fiercely  jealous 
of  Robert  Lloyd,  yet  the  suspicion  that  his  girl  might 
suffer  because  of  her  renunciation  of  him  hurt  him  to 
the  quick.  Ellen  had  told  him  all  she  had  done  in 
the  interests  of  the  strike,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  her 
action  would  effectually  put  an  end  to  all  possible  rela 
tions  between  the  two.  He  tried  to  imagine  how  a  girl 
would  feel,  and  being  a  man,  and  measuring  all  passion 
by  the  strength  of  his  own,  he  exaggerated  her  suffering. 
He  could  eat  nothing,  and  looked  haggard.  He  re 
mained  out-of-doors  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  After 
he  had  cleared  his  own  paths,  he  secured  a  job  clearing 
some  for  a  more  prosperous  neighbor.  Andrew  in  those 
days  grasped  eagerly  at  any  little  job  which  could  bring 
him  in  a  few  pennies.  He  worked  until  dark,  and  when 
he  went  home  he  saw  with  a  great  throb  of  excitement 
the  Lloyd  sleigh  waiting  before  his  door. 

Robert  had  heard  from  Dennison  of  Ellen's  attitude 
about  the  strike.  He  had  been  incredulous  at  first,  as 
indeed  he  had  been  incredulous  about  the  strike.  He 
had  looked  out  of  the  office  window  with  the  gaze  of 
one  who  does  not  believe  what  he  sees  when  he  had 
heard  that  retreating  tramp  of  the  workmen  on  the 
stairs. 

489 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  What  does  all  this  mean?"  he  said  to  Dennison,  who 
entered,  pale  to  his  lips. 

"  It  means  a  strike/'  replied  Dennison.  Nellie  Stone 
rolled  her  pretty  eyes  around  at  the  two  men  from  under 
her  fluff  of  blond  hair.  Flynn  came  in  and  stood  in  a 
curious,  non-committal  attitude. 

"  A  strike  I"  repeated  Robert,  vaguely.     "  What  for?" 

It  seemed  incredible  that  he  should  ask,  but  he  did. 
The  calm  masterfulness  of  his  uncle,  which  could  not 
even  imagine  opposition,  had  apparently  descended  upon 
him. 

Both  foremen  stared  at  him.  Nellie  Stone  smiled  a 
little  covertly. 

"  Why,  you  know  you  had  a  committee  wait  upon  you 
last  night,  Mr.  Lloyd/'  replied  Dennison. 

Flynn  looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  retreating 
throngs  of  workmen,  and  gave  a  whistle  under  his 
breath. 

"Have  they  struck  because  of  the  wage-cutting?" 
asked  Robert,  in  a  curious,  boyish,  incredulous,  ag 
grieved  tone.  Then  all  at  once  he  colored  violently. 
"Let  them  strike,  then!"  he  cried.  He  threw  himself 
into  a  chair  and  took  up  the  morning  paper,  with  its 
glaring  headlines  about  the  unprecedented  storm,  as 
if  nothing  had  happened.  Nellie  Stone,  after  a  sly 
wink  at  Flynn,  which  he  did  not  return,  began  writing 
again.  Flynn  went  out,  and  Dennison  remained  stand 
ing  in  a  rather  helpless  attitude.  A  strike  in  Lloyd's  was 
unprecedented,  but  this  manner  of  receiving  the  news 
was  more  unprecedented  still.  The  proprietor  was 
apparently  reading  the  morning  paper  with  much  in 
terest,  when  two  more  foremen,  heads  of  other  depart 
ments,  came  hurrying  in. 

"I  have  heard  already,"  said  Robert,  in  response  to 
their  gasped  information.  Then  he  turned  another 
page  of  the  paper. 

490 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What's  to  be  done,  sir?"  said  one  of  the  new-comers, 
after  a  prolonged  stare  at  his  companion  and  Dennison. 
He  was  a  spare  man,  with  a  fierce  glimmer  of  blue  eyes 
under  bent  brows. 

"Let  them  strike  if  they  want  to,"  replied  Robert. 

It  was  in  his  mind  to  explain  at  length  to  these  men 
his  reasons  for  cutting  the  wages — for  his  own  attitude 
as  he  knew  it  himself  was  entirely  reasonable — but  the 
pride  of  a  proud  family  was  up  in  him. 

"  The  strike  would  never  have  been  on,  for  the  men 
went  to  work  quietly  enough,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  that 
Brewster  girl,"  Dennison  said,  presently,  but  rather 
doubtfully.  He  was  not  quite  sure  how  the  information 
would  be  received. 

Robert  dropped  his  paper,  and  stared  at  him  with 
angry  incredulity. 

"What  are  you  talking  about?"  he  said.  "What 
had  Miss  Brewster  to  do  with  it?" 

He  said  "Miss  Brewster"  with  a  meaning  emphasis 
of  respect,  and  Dennison  was  quick  to  adopt  the  hint. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  he  replied,  uneasily,  "only  she  talked 
with  them." 

"  You  mean  that  Miss  Brewster  talked  to  the 
men?" 

"Yes;  she  said  a  good  deal  yesterday,  and  to-day 
the  men  would  not  have  struck  if  it  had  not  been  for  her. 
It  only  needs  a  spark  to  set  them  off  sometimes." 

Robert  was  very  pale.  "  Well,"  he  said,  coolly, 
"there  is  no  need  for  you  to  remain  longer,  since  the 
factory  is  shut  down.  You  may  as  well  go." 

"The  engineer  is  seeing  to  the  fires,  Mr.  Lloyd,"  said 
Dennison. 

"Very  well."  Robert  turned  to  the  girl  at  the  desk. 
"The  factory  is  closed,  Miss  Stone,"  he  said;  "there 
is  no  need  for  you  to  remain  longer  to-day.  Come  to 
morrow  at  ten  o'clock,  and  I  will  have  something  for  you 

491 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

to  do  with  regard  to  settling  up  accounts.  There  is 
nothing  in  shape  now." 

That  afternoon  Robert  went  to  see  Ellen.  He  could 
not  wait  until  evening. 

Fanny  greeted  him  at  the  door,  and  there  was  the 
inevitable  flurry  about  lighting  the  parlor  stove,  and 
presently  Ellen  entered. 

She  had  changed  the  gown  which  she  had  worn  at 
her  factory-work  for  her  last  winter's  best  one.  Her 
young  face  was  pale,  almost  severe,  and  she  met  him 
in  a  way  which  made  her  seem  a  stranger. 

Robert  realized  suddenly  that  she  had,  as  it  were, 
closed  the  door  upon  all  their  old  relations.  She  seemed 
years  older,  and  at  the  same  time  indefinably  younger, 
since  she  was  letting  the  childish  impulses,  which  are  at 
the  heart  of  all  of  us  untouched  by  time  and  experience, 
rise  rampant  and  unchecked.  She  was  following  the 
lead  of  her  own  convictions  with  the  terrible  unswerving 
of  a  child,  even  in  the  face  of  her  own  hurt.  She  was, 
metaphorically,  bumping  her  own  head  against  the 
floor  in  her  vain  struggles  for  mastery  over  the  mighty 
conditions  of  her  life. 

She  bowed  to  Robert,  and  did  not  seem  to  see  his 
proffered  hand. 

"  Won't  you  shake  hands  with  me?"  he  asked,  almost 
humbly,  although  his  own  wrath  was  beginning  to 
rise. 

"No,  I  would  rather  not,"  she  replied,  with  a  straight 
look  at  him.  Her  blue  eyes  did  not  falter  in  the  least. 

"May  I  sit  down?"  he  said.  "I  have  something  I 
would  like  to  say  to  you." 

"Certainly,  if  \^ou  wish,"  she  replied.  Then  she 
seated  herself  on  the  sofa,  with  Robert  opposite  in  the 
crushed-plush  easy-chair. 

The  room  was  still  very  cold,  and  the  breath  could 
be  seen  at  the  lips  of  each  in  white  clouds.  Robert  had 

492 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

on  his  coat,  but  Ellen  had  nothing  over  her  blue  gown. 
It  was  on  Robert's  tongue  to  ask  if  she  were  not  cold, 
then  he  refrained.  The  issues  at  stake  seemed  to  make 
the  question  frivolous  to  offensiveness.  He  felt  that 
any  approach  to  tenderness  when  Ellen  was  in  her 
present  mood  would  invoke  an  indignation  for  which 
he  could  scarcely  blame  her,  that  he  must  try  to  meet 
her  on  equal  fighting-ground. 

Ellen  sat  before  him,  her  little,  cold  hands  tightly 
folded  in  her  lap,  her  mouth  set  hard,  her  steady  fire  of 
blue  eyes  on  his  face,  waiting  for  him  to  speak. 

Robert  felt  a  decided  awkwardness  about  beginning 
to  talk.  Suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  to  wonder  what 
there  was  to  say.  It  amounted  to  this :  they  were  in 
their  two  different  positions,  their  two  points  of  view — 
would  either  leave  for  any  argument  of  the  other? 
Then  he  wondered  if  he  could,  in  the  face  of  a  girl  who 
wore  an  expression  like  that,  stoop  to  make  an  argu 
ment,  for  the  utter  blindness  and  deafness  of  her  very 
soul  to  any  explanation  of  his  position  was  too  evident 
in  her  face. 

"  I  called  to  tell  you,  if  you  will  permit  me,  how  much 
I  regret  the  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  at  the  factory/' 
Robert  said,  and  the  girl's  eyes  met  his  as  with  a  flash 
of  flame. 

"Why did  you  not  prevent  it, then?"  asked  she.  El 
len  had  all  the  fire  of  her  family,  but  a  steadiness  of 
manner  which  never  deserted  her.  She  was  never 
violent. 

'•'  I  could  not  prevent  it/'  replied  Robert,  in  a  knv  voice. 

Ellen  said  nothing. 

"  You  mistake  my  position/'  said  Robert.  It  was  in 
his  mind  then  to  lay  the  matter  fully  before  her,  as  he 
had  disdained  to  do  before  the  committee,  but  her  next 
words  deterred  him. 

"I  understand  your  position  very  fully,"  said  she. 
493 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Robert  bowed. 

"There  is  only  one  way  of  looking  at  it/'  said  Ellen, 
in  her  inexpressibly  sweet,  almost  fanatical  voice.  She 
tossed  her  head,  and  the  fluff  of  fair  hair  over  her  tem 
ples  caught  a  beam  of  afternoon  sunlight. 

"She  is  only  a  child/'  thought  Robert,  looking  at 
her.  He  rose  and  crossed  over  to  the  sofa,  and  sat  down 
beside  her  with  a  masterful  impatience.  "  Look  here, 
Ellen/'  he  said,  leaving  all  general  issues  for  their  own 
personal  ones,  "you  are  not  going  to  let  this  come  be 
tween  us?" 

Ellen  sat  stiff  and  straight,  and  made  no  reply. 

"All  this  can  make  very  little  difference  to  you," 
Robert  urged.  "You  know  how  I  feel.  That  is,  it 
can  make  very  little  difference  to  you  if  you  still  feel 
as  you  did.  You  must  know  that  I  have  only  been 
waiting — that  I  am  eager  and  impatient  to  lift  you  out 
of  it  all." 

Ellen  faced  him.  "  Do  you  think  I  would  be  lifted  out 
of  it  now?"  she  said. 

"Why,  but,  Ellen,  you  cannot — 

"Yes,  I  can.     You  do  not  know  me." 

"Ellen,  you  are  under  a  total  misapprehension  of 
my  position." 

"No,  I  am  not.     I  apprehend  it  perfectly." 

"Ellen,  you  cannot  let  this  separate  us." 

Ellen  looked  straight  ahead  in  silence. 

"You  at  least  owe  it  to  me  to  tell  me  if,  irrespective 
of  this,  your  feelings  have  changed,"  Robert  said,  in 
a  low  voice. 

Ellen  said  nothing. 

"You  may  have  come  to  prefer  some  one  else/'  said 
Robert. 

"  I  prefer  no  one  before  my  own,  before  all  these  poor 
people  who  are  a  part  of  my  life,"  Ellen  cried  out/sud 
denly,  her  face  flaming. 

494 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Then  why  do  you  refuse  to  let  me  act  for  their  final 
good?  You  must  know  what  it  means  to  have  them 
thrown  out  of  work  in  midwinter.  You  know  the  fac 
tory  will  remain  closed  for  the  present  on  account  of 
the  strike." 

"  I  did  not  doubt  it,"  said  Ellen,  in  a  hard  voice.  All 
the  bitter  thoughts  to  which  she  would  not  give  utter 
ance  were  in  her  voice. 

"  I  cannot  continue  to  run  the  factory  at  the  present 
rate  and  meet  expenses,"  said  Robert;  "in  fact,  I  have 
been  steadily  losing  for  the  last  month."  He  had,  after 
all,  descended  to  explanation.  "  It  amounts  to  my  either 
reducing  the  wage-list  or  closing  the  factory  altogether," 
he  continued.  "  For  my  own  good  I  ought  to  close  the 
factory  altogether,  but  I  thought  I  would  give  the  men 
a  chance." 

Robert  thought  by  saying  that  he  must  have  finally 
settled  matters.  It  did  not  enter  his  head  that  she 
would  really  think  it  advisable  for  him  to  continue  los 
ing  money.  The  pure  childishness  of  her  attitude 
was  something  really  beyond  the  comprehension  of 
a  man  of  business  who  had  come  into  hard  business 
theories  along  with  his  uncle's  dollars. 

"What  if  you  do  lose  money?"  said  Ellen. 

Robert  stared  at  her.     "  I  beg  your  pardon?"  said  he. 

"What  if  you  do  lose  money?" 

"A  man  cannot  conduct  business  on  such  princi 
ples,"  replied  Robert.  "  There  would  soon  be  no  busi 
ness  to  conduct.  You  don't  understand." 

"Yes,  I  do  understand  fully,"  replied  Ellen. 

Robert  looked  at  her,  at  the  clear,  rosy  curve  of  her 
young  cheek,  the  toss  of  yellow  hair  above  a  forehead 
as  candid  as  a  baby's,  at  her  little,  delicate  figure,  and 
all  at  once  such  a  rage  of  masculine  insistence  over  all 
this  obstinacy  of  reasoning  was  upon  him  that  it  was 
all  he  could  do  to  keep  himself  from  seizing  her  in  his 

495 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

arms  and  forcing  her  to  a  view  of  his  own  horizon.  He 
[elt  himself  drawn  up  in  opposition  to  an  opponent  at 
once  too  delicate,  too  unreasoning,  and  too  beloved  to 
encounter.  It  seemed  as  if  the  absurdity  of  it  would 
drive  him  mad,  and  yet  he  was  held  to  it.  He  tried  to 
give  a  desperate  wrench  aside  from  the  main  point  of 
the  situation.  He  leaned  over  Ellen,  so  closely  that 
his  lips  touched  her  hair. 

"Ellen,  let  us  leave  all  this,"  he  pleaded;  "let  me 
talk  to  you.  I  had  to  wait  a  little  while.  I  knew  you 
would  understand  that,  but  let  me  talk  to  you  now." 

Ellen  sat  as  rigid  as  marble.  "  I  wish  to  talk  of  noth 
ing  besides  the  matter  at  hand,  Mr.  Lloyd,"  said  she. 
:'  That  is  too  close  to  my  heart  for  any  personal  consid 
eration  to  come  between." 

496 


CHAPTER  LIV 

WHEN  Robert  went  home  in  the  winter  twilight  he 
was  more  miserable  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life. 
Pie  felt  as  if  he  had  been  assaulting  a  beautiful  alabas 
ter  wall  of  unreason.  He  felt  as  if  that  which  he  could 
shatter  at  a  blow  had  yet  held  him  in  defiance.  The 
idea  of  this  girl,  of  whom  he  had  thought  as  his  future 
wife,  deliberately  setting  herself  against  him,  galled 
him  inexpressibly,  and  in  spite  of  himself  he  could 
not  quite  free  his  mind  of  jealousy.  On  his  way  home 
he  stopped  at  Lyman  Risley's  office,  and  found,  to  his 
great  satisfaction,  that  he  was  alone,  writing  at  his 
desk.  Even  his  stenographer  had  gone  home.  He 
turned  around  when  Robert  entered,  and  looked  at 
him  with  his  quizzical,  yet  kindly,  smile. 

"Well,  how  are  you,  boy?"  he  said. 

Robert  dropped  into  the  first  chair,  and  sat  therein, 
haunched  up  as  in  a  lapse  of  despair  and  weariness. 

"  What  is  the  matter?"  asked  Risley. 

"You  have  heard  about  the  trouble  in  the  factory?" 

For  answer  Risley  held  up  a  night's  paper  with  glar 
ing  head-lines. 

"Yes,  of  course  it  is  in  the  papers,"  assented  Robert, 
wearily. 

Risley  stared  at  him  in  a  lazily  puzzled  fashion. 
"Well,"  he  said,  "what  is  it  all  about?  Why  are  you 
so  broken  up  about  it?"  Risley  laid  considerable  em 
phasis  on  the  you. 

"Yes,"  cried  Robert,  in  a  sudden  stress  of  indigna 
tion.  "You  look  at  it  like  all  the  rest.  Why  are  all 
2,  497 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

the  laborers  to  be  petted  and  coddled,  and  the  capital 
ists  held  up  to  execration?  Good  Lord,  isn't  there  any 
pity  for  the  rich  man  without  his  drop  of  water,  in  the 
Bible  or  out?  Are  all  creation  born  with  blinders  on, 
and  can  they  only  see  before  their  noses?" 

"What  are  you  talking  about,  Robert?"  said  Risley, 
laughing  a  little. 

"  I  say  why  should  all  the  sympathy  go  to  the  work 
men  who  are  acting  like  the  pig-headed  idiots  they  are, 
and  none  for  the  head  of  the  factory,  who  has  the  sharp- 
edged,  red-hot  brunt  of  it  all  to  bear?" 

"  You  wouldn't  look  at  it  that  way  if  you  were  one  of 
the  poor  men  just  out  on  strike  such  weather  as  this," 
said  Risley,  dryly.  He  glanced  as  he  spoke  at  the 
window,  which  was  beginning  to  be  thickly  furred  with 
frost  in  spite  of  the  heat  of  the  office.  Robert  followed 
his  gaze,  and  noted  the  spreading  fairy  jungle  of  crys 
talline  trees  and  flowers  on  the  broad  field  of  glass. 

"  Do  you  think  that  is  the  worst  thing  in  the  world  to 
bear?"  he  demanded,  angrily. 

"What?  Cold  and  hunger  not  only  for  yourself,  but 
for  those  you  love?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  I  think  it  is  pretty  bad,"  replied  Rislej^. 

"  Well,  suppose  you  had  to  bear  that,  at  least  for  those 
you  loved,  and — and — "  said  the  young  man,  lamely. 

Risley  remained  silent,  waiting. 

"  If  I  had  been  my  uncle  instead  of  myself  I  should 
simply  have  shut  down  with  no  ado,"  said  Robert,  pres 
ently,  in  an  angry,  argumentative  voice. 

"I  suppose  you  would;  and  as  it  was?" 

"  As  it  was,  I  thought  I  would  give  them  a  chance. 
Good  God,  Risley,  I  have  been  running  the  factory  at 
a  loss  for  a  month  as  it  is.  With  this  new  wage-list 
I  should  no  more  than  make  expenses,  if  I  did  that. 
What  was  it  to  me?  I  did  it  to  keep  them  in  some  sort 

498 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  work.  As  for  myself,  I  would  much  rather  have 
shut  down  and  done  with  it,  but  I  tried  to  keep  it  run 
ning  on  their  account,  poor  devils,  and  now  I  am  exe 
crated  for  it,  and  they  have  deliberately  refused  what 
little  I  could  offer." 

"Did  you  explain  all  this  to  the  committee?"  asked 
Risley. 

"  Explain?  No!  I  told  them  my  course  was  founded 
upon  strict  business  principles,  and  was  as  much  for 
their  good  as  for  mine.  They  understood.  They 
know  how  hard  the  times  are.  Why,  it  was  only 
last  week  that  Weeks  &  McLaughlin  failed,  and  that 
meant  a  heavy  loss.  I  didn't  explain."  Then  Robert 
hesitated  and  colored.  "I  have  just  explained  to  her," 
he  said,  with  a  curious  hang  of  his  head,  like  a  boy, 
"and  if  my  explanation  was  met  in  the  same  fashion 
by  the  others  in  the  factory  I  might  as  well  have  ad 
dressed  the  north  wind.  They  are  all  alike ;  they  are  a 
different  race.  We  cannot  help  them,  and  they  cannot 
help  themselves,  because  they  are  themselves." 

"  You  mean  by  her,  Ellen  Brewster?"  Risley  said. 

Robert  nodded  gloomily. 

"That  is  all  in  the  paper/'  said  Risley — "what  she 
said  to  the  men." 

Robert  made  an  impatient  move. 

"  If  ever  there  was  a  purely  normal  outgrowth,  a  per 
fect  flower  of  her  birth  and  environments  and  train 
ing,  that  girl  is  one,"  said  Risley,  with  an  accent  of 
admiration. 

"She  is  infected  with  the  ranting  idiocy  of  those 
with  whom  she  has  been  brought  in  daily  contact," 
said  Robert ;  but  even  as  he  spoke  he  seemed  to  see  the 
girl's  dear  young  face,  and  his  voice  faltered. 

"  Even  as  you  may  be  infected  with  the  conservatism 
of  those  with  whom  you  are  brought  in  contact,"  said 
Risley,  dryly. 

499 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"What  a  democrat  you  are,  Risley!"  said  Robert, 
rnpatiently.  "  I  believe  you  would  make  a  good  walk- 
is  g  delegate." 

Risley  laughed.  "I  think  I  would  myself,"  he  said. 
'  Wouldn't  she  listen  to  you,  Robert?" 

"  She  listened  with  such  utter  dissent  that  she  might 
is  well  have  been  dumb.  It  is  all  over  between  us, 
Risley." 

"How  precipitate  you  are,  you  young  folks!"  said 
he  other,  good-humoredly. 

"  How  precipitate?    Do  you  mean  to  say — ?" 

' '  I  mean  that  you  are  forever  thinking  yon  are  on 
he  brink  of  nothingness,  when  the  true  horizon-line  is 
oo  far  for  you  ever  to  reach  in  your  mortal  life." 

"Not  in  this  case,"  said  Robert. 

' '  You  know  nothing  about  it.  But  if  you  will  excuse 
ne,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  matter  of  all  these  people  be- 
ng  reduced  to  starvation  in  a  howling  winter  is  of  more 
mportance  than  the  coming  together  of  two  people  in 
he  bonds  of  wedlock.  It  is  the  aggregate  against  the 
ndividual." 

"I  don't  deny  that,"  said  Robert,  doggedly,  "but  I 
im  not  responsible  for  the  starvation,  and  the  aggregate 
lave  brought  it  on  themselves." 

"You  have  shut  down  finally?" 

"Yes,  I  have.  I  would  rather  shut  down  than  not, 
is  far  as  I  am  concerned.  It  is  distinctly  for  my  in- 
erest.  The  only  one  objection  is  losing  experienced 
vorkmen,  but  in  a  communit}7  like  this,  and  in  times 
ike  this,  that  objection  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  I 
:an  hire  all  I  want  in  the  spring  if  I  wish  to  open  again. 
.  should  run  a  risk  of  losing  on  every  order  I  should 
lave  to  fill  in  the  next  three  months,  even  with  the  re- 
luced  list.  I  would  rather  shut  down  than  not ;  I  only 
•educed  the  wages  for  them." 

Robert  rose  as  he  spoke.  He  felt  in  his  heart  that 

500 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

he  had  gotten  scant  sympathy  and  comfort.  The 
older  man  looked  with  pity  at  the  young  fellow's  hand 
some,  gloomy  face. 

"There's  one  thing  to  remember,"  he  said. 

"What?" 

"All  the  troubles  of  this  world  are  born  with  wings." 
Risley  laughed,  as  he  spoke,  in  his  half-cynical  fash 
ion. 

As  Robert  walked  home — for  there  was  no  car  due — 
he  felt  completely  desolate.  It  seemed  to  him  that  every 
body  was  in  league  against  him.  When  he  reached  his 
uncle's  splendid  house  and  entered,  he  felt  such  an 
isolation  from  his  kind  in  the  midst  of  his  wealth  that 
something  like  an  actual  terror  of  solitude  came  over 
him. 

The  impecunious  cousin  of  his  aunt's  who  had  come 
to  her  during  her  last  illness  acted  as  his  housekeeper. 
There  was  something  inexpressibly  irritating  about 
this  woman,  who  had  suffered  so  much,  and  was  now 
nestling,  with  a  sense  of  triumph  over  the  passing  of 
her  griefs,  in  a  luxurious  home. 

She  asked  Robert  if  it  were  true  that  the  factory  was 
closed,  and  he  felt  that  she  noted  his  gloomy  face,  and 
realized  a  greater  extent  of  comfort  from  her  own  exemp 
tion  from  such  questions. 

"  Business  must  be  a  great  care,"  said  she,  and  a  look 
of  utter  peaceful  reflection  upon  her  own  lot  overspread 
her  face. 

After  supper  Robert  went  down  to  his  aunt  Cj^ithia's. 
He  had  not  been  there  for  a  long  time.  The  minute  he 
entered  she  started  up  with  an  eagerness  which  had 
been  completely  foreign  to  her  of  late  years. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Robert?"  she  asked,  softly. 
She  took  both  his  hands  as  she  spoke,  and  her  look  in 
his  face  was  full  of  delicate  caressing. 

Robert  sticcifrnbed  at  once,  to  this  feminine  solicitude, 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

of  which  he  had  had  lately  so  little.  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  relapsed  into  childhood.  A  sense  of  injury  which 
was  exquisite,  as  it  brought  along  with  it  a  sense  of  his 
demand  upon  love  and  sympathy,  seized  him. 

"  I  am  worried  beyond  endurance,  Aunt  Cynthia," 
said  he. 

"About  the  strike?     I  have  read  the  night  papers." 

"  Yes ;  I  tried  to  do  what  was  right,  even  at  a  sacrifice 
to  myself,  and — " 

Cynthia  had  read  about  Ellen,  but  she  was  a  woman, 
and  she  said  nothing  as  to  that. 

"  I  tried  to  do  what  was  right,"  Robert  said,  fairly 
broken  down  again. 

Cynthia  had  seated  herself,  and  Robert  had  taken 
a  low  foot-stool  at  her  side.  It  came  over  him  as  he  did 
so  that  it  had  been  a  favorite  seat  of  his  when  a  child. 
As  for  Cynthia,  influenced  by  the  appealing  to  the 
vulnerable  place  of  her  nature,  she  put  her  slim  hands 
3n  her  nephew's  head,  and  actually  seemed  to  feel  his 
baby  curls. 

"Poor  boy,"  she  whispered. 

Robert  put  both  his  arms  around  her  and  hid  his  face 
:>n  her  shoulder,  for  love  is  a  comforter,  in  whatever 
^uise. 

502 


CHAPTER  LV 

ON  the  day  after  the  strike  Ellen  went  to  McGuire's 
and  to  Briggs's,  the  two  other  factories  in  Rowe,  to  see 
if  she  could  obtain  a  position ;  but  she  was  not  success 
ful.  McGuire  had  discharged  some  of  his  employes, 
reducing  his  force  to  its  smallest  possible  limits,  since 
he  had  fewer  orders,  and  was  trying  in  that  way  to  avert 
the  necessity  of  a  cut  in  wages,  and  a  strike  or  shut 
down.  McGuire's  was  essentially  a  union  factory,  as 
was  Briggs's.  Ellen  would  have  found  in  either  case 
difficulty  about  obtaining  employment,  because  she  did 
not  belong  to  the  union,  if  for  no  other  reason.  At 
Briggs's  she  encountered  the  proprietor  himself  in  the 
office,  and  he  dismissed  her  with  a  bluff,  almost  brutal, 
peremptoriness  which  hurt  her  cruelly,  although  she 
held  up  her  head  high  as  she  left.  Briggs  turned  to  a 
foreman  who  was  standing  by  before  she  was  well  out 
of  hearing. 

"I  like  that!"  he  said.  "Mrs.  Briggs  read  about 
that  girl  in  the  paper  last  night,  and  the  strike  wouldn't 
have  been  on  at  Lloyd's  if  it  hadn't  been  for  her.  I  would 
as  soon  take  a  lighted  match  into  a  powder-magazine." 

The  foreman  grinned.  "  She's  a  pretty,  mild-looking 
thing,"  he  said;  "doesn't  look  as  if  she  could  say  boo 
to  a  goose." 

"That's  all  you  can  tell,"  returned  Briggs.  "De 
liver  me  from  a  light-complexioned  woman.  They're 
all  the  very  devil.  Mrs.  Briggs  says  it's  the  same  girl 
that  read  that  composition  that  made  such  a  stir  at  the 
high -school  exhibition.  She'd  make  more  trouble 

503 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

in  a  factory  than  a  dozen  ordinary  girls,  and  just  now, 
when  everything  is  darned  ticklish-looking." 

"  That's  so,"  assented  the  foreman,  "  and  all  the  more 
because  she's  good-looking." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  call  good-looking,"  returned 
Briggs. 

He  had  two  daughters,  built  upon  the  same  heavy  lines 
as  himself  and  wife,  and  he  adored  them.  Insensibly 
he  regarded  all  more  delicate  feminine  beauty  as  a 
disparagement  of  theirs.  As  Briggs  spoke,  the  foreman 
seemed  to  see  in  the  air  before  his  eyes  the  faces  of  the 
two  Briggs  girls,  large  and  massive,  and  dull  of  hue, 
the  feminine  counterpart  of  their  father's. 

"Well,  maybe  you're  right,"  said  he,  evasively.  "I 
suppose  some  might  call  her  good-looking." 

As  he  spoke  he  glanced  out  of  the  window  at  Ellen's 
retreating  figure,  moving  away  over  the  snow  -  path 
with  an  almost  dancing  motion  of  youth  and  courage, 
though  she  was  sorely  hurt.  The  girl  had  scarcely 
ever  had  a  hard  word  said  to  her  in  her  whole  life,  for 
she  had  been  in  her  humble  place  a  petted  darling. 
She  had  plenty  of  courage  to  bear  the  hard  words  now, 
but  they  cut  deeply  into  her  unseasoned  heart. 

Ellen  went  on  past  the  factories  to  the  main  street  of 
Rowe.  She  had  no  idea  of  giving  up  her  efforts  to 
obtain  employment.  She  said  to  herself  that  she  must 
have  work.  She  thought  of  the  stores,  that  possibly  she 
might  obtain  a  chance  to  serve  as  a  sales-girl  in  one  of 
them.  She  actually  began  at  the  end  of  the  long  street, 
and  worked  her  way  through  it,  \vith  her  useless  in 
quiries,  facing  proprietors  and  superintendents,  but  with 
no  success.  There  was  not  a  vacancy  in  more  than  one 
or  two,  and  there  they  wished  only  experienced  hands. 
She  found  out  that  her  factory  record  told  against  her. 
The  moment  she  admitted  that  she  had  worked  in  a  fac 
tory  the  cold  shoulder  was  turned.  The  position  of  a 

504 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

shop-girl  was  so  far  below  that  of  a  sales-lady  that  the 
effect  upon  the  superintendent  was  almost  as  if  he  had 
met  an  unworthy  aspirant  to  a  throne.  He  would  smile 
insultingly  and  incredulously,  even  as  he  regarded  her. 

"  You  would  find  that  our  goods  are  too  fine  to  handle 
after  leather.  Have  you  tried  all  the  shops?" 

At  last  Ellen  gave  that  up,  and  started  homeward. 
She  paused  once  as  she  came  opposite  an  intelligence 
office.  There  was  one  course  yet  open  to  her,  but  from 
that  she  shrank,  not  on  her  own  account,  but  she  dared 
not — knowing  what  would  be  the  sufferings  of  her  rela 
tives  should  she  do  so — apply  for  a  position  as  a  servant. 

As  for  herself,  strained  as  she  was  to  her  height  of 
youthful  enthusiasm  for  a  great  cause,  as  she  judged 
it  to  be,  clamping  her  feet  to  the  topmost  round  of  her 
ladder  of  difficulty,  she  would  have  essayed  any  honest 
labor  with  no  hesitation  whatever.  But  she  thought 
of  her  father  and  mother  and  grandmother,  and  went 
on  past  the  intelligence  office. 

When  she  came  to  her  old  school-teacher's — Miss 
Mitchell's — house,  she  paused  and  hesitated  a  moment, 
then  she  went  up  the  little  path  between  the  snow-banks 
to  the  front  door,  and  rang  the  bell.  The  door  was  opened 
before  the  echoes  had  died  *  away.  Miss  Mitchell  had 
seen  her  coming,  and  hastened  to  open  it.  Miss  Mitchell 
had  not  been  teaching  school  for  some  years,  having 
retired  on  a  small  competency  of  her  savings.  Her 
mortgage  was  paid,  and  there  was  enough  for  herself 
and  her  mother  to  live  upon,  with  infinite  care  as  to  de 
tails  of  expenditure.  Every  postage-stamp  and  car 
fare  had  its  important  part  in  the  school-teacher's  sys 
tem  of  economy ;  but  she  was  quite  happy,  and  her  large 
face  wore  an  expression  of  perfect  peace  and  placidity. 

She  was  a  woman  who  was  not  tortured  by  any  strong, 
ungratified  desires.  Her  allotment  of  the  gifts  of  the 
gods  quite  satisfied  her. 

505 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

When  Ellen  entered  the  rather  stuffy  sitting-room 
— for  Miss  Mitchell  and  her  mother  were  jealous  of  any 
breath  of  cold  air  after  the  scanty  fire  was  kindled — 
it  was  like  entering  into  a  stratum  of  peace.  It  seemed 
quite  removed  from  the  turmoil  of  her  own  life.  The 
school-teacher's  old  mother  sat  in  her  rocker  close  to 
the  stove,  stouter  than  ever,  filling  up  her  chair  with 
those  wandering  curves  and  vague  outlines  which 
only  the  over-fleshy  human  form  can  assume.  She 
looked  as  indefinite  as  a  quivering  jelly  until  one  reached 
her  face.  That  wore  a  fixedness  of  amiability  which 
accentuated  the  whole  like  a  high  light.  She  had  not 
seen  Ellen  for  a  long  time,  and  she  greeted  her  with 
delight. 

"Bless  your  heart!"  said  she,  in  her  sweet,  throaty, 
husky  voice.  "Go  and  get  her  some  of  them  cookies, 
Fanny,  do."  The  old  woman's  faculties  were  not  in 
the  least  impaired,  although  she  was  very  old,  neither 
had  her  hands  lost  their  cunning,  for  she  still  retained 
her  skill  in  cookery,  and  prepared  the  simple  meals 
for  herself  and  daughter,  seated  in  a  high  chair  at  the 
kitchen  table  to  roll  out  pastry  or  the  famous  little  cook 
ies  which  Ellen  remembered  along  with  her  childhood. 

There  was  something  about  these  cookies  which 
Miss  Mitchell  presently  brought  to  her  in  a  pretty 
china  plate,  with  a  little,  fine-fringed  napkin,  which 
was  like  a  morsel  of  solace  to  the  girl.  With  the  first 
sweet  crumble  of  the  cake  on  her  plate,  she  wished  to 
cry.  Sometimes  the  rush  of  old,  kindly,  tender  asso 
ciations  will  overcome  one  who  is  quite  equal  to  the 
strain  of  present  emergency.  But  she  did  not  cry;  she 
ate  her  cookies,  and  confided  to  Miss  Mitchell  and  her 
mother  her  desire  to  obtain  a  position  elsewhere,  since 
her  factory-work  had  failed  her.  It  had  occurred  to 
her  that  possibly  Miss  Mitchell,  who  was  on  the  school- 
board,  might  know  of  a  vacancy  in  a  primary  school 

506 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

for  the  coming  spring  term,  and  that  she  might  ob 
tain  it. 

"  I  think  I  know  enough  to  teach  a  primary  school/' 
Ellen  said. 

"Of  course  you  do,  bless  your  heart/'  said  old  Mrs. 
Mitchell.  "  She  knows  enough  to  teach  any  kind  of  a 
school,  don't  she,  Fanny?  You  get  her  a  school,  dear, 
right  away." 

But  Miss  Mitchell  knew  of  no  probable  vacancy,  since 
one  young  woman  who  had  expected  to  be  married  had 
postponed  her  marriage  on  account  of  the  strike  in 
Lloyd's,  and  the  consequent  throwing  out  of  employ 
ment  of  her  sweetheart.  Then,  also,  Miss  Mitchell 
owned  with  hesitation,  in  response  to  Ellen's  insistent 
question,  that  she  supposed  that  the  fact  that  she  had 
worked  in  a  shop  might  in  any  case  interfere  with  her 
obtaining  a  position  in  a  school. 

"  There  is  no  sense  in  it,  dear  child,  I  know,"  she  said, 
"but  it  might  be  so." 

"  Yes,  I  supposed  so,"  replied  Ellen,  bitterly.  "  They 
would  all  say  that  a  shop-girl  had  no  right  to  try  to 
teach  school.  Well,  I'm  much  obliged  to  you,  Miss 
Mitchell." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  Miss  Mitchell  asked, 
anxiously,  following  her  to  the  door. 

"I'm  going  to  Mrs.  Doty,  to  get  some  of  the  wrap 
pers  that  mother  works  on,  until  something  else  turns 
up,"  replied  Ellen. 

"It  seems  a  pity." 

Ellen  smiled  bravely.  "  Beggars  mustn't  be  choos 
ers,"  she  said.  "  If  we  can  only  keep  along,  somehow, 
I  don't  care." 

There  came  a  vehement  pound  of  a  stick  on  the  floor, 
for  that  was  the  way  the  old  woman  in  the  sitting-room 
commanded  attention.  Miss  Mitchell  opened  the  door 
on  a  crack,  that  she  might  not  let  in  the  cold  air. 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  What  is  it,  mother?"  she  said. 

"  You  get  Ellen  a  school  right  away,  Fanny." 

"All  right,  mother;  I'll  do  my  best." 

"Get  her  the  grammar-school  you   used  to  have." 

"All  right,  mother." 

There  was  something  about  the  imperative  solici 
tude  of  the  old  woman  which  comforted  Ellen  in 
spite  of  its  futility  as  she  went  on  her  way.  The 
good -will  of  another  human  soul,  even  when  it 
cannot  be  resolved  into  active  benefits,  has  undoubt 
edly  a  mighty  force  of  its  own.  Ellen,  with  the 
sweet  of  the  cookies  still  lingering  on  her  tongue, 
and  the  sweet  of  the  old  woman's  kindness  in  her 
soul,  felt  refreshed  as  if  by  some  subtle  spiritual 
cake  and  wine.  She  even  went  to  the  door  of 
Mrs.  Doty's  house.  Mrs.  Doty  was  the  woman 
who  let  out  wrappers  to  her  impecunious  neigh 
bors  with  an  undaunted  heart.  She  had  no  dif 
ficulty  there.  The  demand  for  cheap  wrappers  was 
not  on  the  wane,  even  in  the  hard  times.  When 
Ellen  reached  her  grandmother's  house,  with  a  great 
parcel  under  her  arm,  Mrs.  Zelotes  opened  her  side 
door. 

"What  have  you  got  there,  Ellen  Brewster?"  she 
called  out  sharply. 

"Some  wrappers,"  replied  Ellen,  cheerfully. 

"Are  you  going  to  work  on  wrappers?" 

"Yes,  grandma." 

The  door  was  shut  with  a  loud  report. 

When  Ellen  entered  the  house  and  the  sitting-room, 
her  mother  looked  up  from  a  pink  wrapper  which  she 
was  finishing. 

"  What  have  you  got  there?"  she  demanded. 

"Some  wrappers." 

"  Why,  I  haven't  finished  the  last  lot." 

"These  are  for  me  to  make,  mother." 

508 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Andrew  got  up  and  went  out  of  the  room.  Fanny 
shut  her  mouth  hard,  and  drew  her  thread  through 
with  a  jerk. 

"Well,"  she  said, in  a  second,  "take  off  your  things, 
and  let  me  show  you  how  to  start  on  them.  There's  a 
little  knack  about  it." 

509 


CHAPTER   LVI 

THAT  was  a  hard  winter  for  Rowe.  Aside  from 
the  financial  stress,  the  elements  seemed  to  conspire 
against  the  people  who  were  so  ill-prepared  to  meet 
their  fury.  It  was  the  coldest  winter  which  had  been 
known  for  years ;  coal  was  higher,  and  the  poor  people 
had  less  coal  to  burn.  Storm  succeeded  storm;  then, 
when  there  came  a  warm  spell,  there  was  an  epidemic 
of  the  grippe,  and  doctors'  bills  to  pay  and  quinine  to 
buy — and  quinine  was  very  dear. 

The  Brewsters  managed  to  keep  up  the  interest  on 
the  house  mortgage,  but  their  living  expenses  were  re 
duced  to  the  smallest  possible  amount.  In  those  days 
there  was  no  wood  laid  ready  for  kindling  in  the  parlor 
stove,  since  there  was  neither  any  wood  to  spare  nor 
expectation  of  Robert's  calling.  Ellen  and  her  mother 
sat  in  the  dining-room,  for  even  the  sitting-room  fire 
had  been  abolished,  and  they  heated  the  dining-room 
whenever  the  weather  admitted  it  from  the  kitchen 
stove,  and  worked  on  the  wrappers  for  their  miserable 
pittance. 

The  repeated  storms  were  in  a  way  a  boon  to  Andrew, 
since  he  got  many  jobs  clearing  paths,  and  thus  secured 
a  trifle  towards  the  daily  expenses. 

In  those  days  Mrs.  Zelotes  watched  the  butcher- 
cart  anxiously  when  it  stopped  before  her  son's 
house,  and  she  knew  just  what  a  tiny  bit  of  meat 
was  purchased,  and  how  seldom.  On  the  days 
when  the  cart  moved  on  without  any  consulta 
tion  at  the  tail  thereof,  the  old  woman  would  buy 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

an  extra  portion,  cook  it,  and  carry  some  over  to  her 
son's. 

Times  grew  harder  and  harder.  Few  of  the  opera 
tives  who  had  struck  in  Lloyd's  succeeded  in  obtaining 
employment  elsewhere,  and  most  of  them  joined  the 
•  union  to  enable  them  to  do  so.  There  was  actual  pri 
vation.  One  evening,  when  the  strike  was  some  six 
weeks  old,  Abby  Atkins  came  over  in  a  pouring  rain 
to  see  Ellen.  There  were  a  number  of  men  in  the  din 
ing-room  that  night.  Amos  Lee  and  Frank  Dixon 
were  among  them.  It  was  a  singular  thing  that  An 
drew,  taking,  as  he  had  done,  no  active  part  in  any  re 
bellion  against  authority,  should  have  come  to  see  his 
house  the  headquarters  for  the  rallies  of  dissension. 
Men  seemed  to  come  to  Andrew  Brewster's  for  the  sake 
of  bolstering  themselves  up  in  their  hard  position  of  de 
fiance  against  tremendous  odds,  though  he  sat  by  and 
seldom  said  a  word.  As  for  Ellen,  she  and  her  mother 
on  these  occasions  sat  out  in  the  kitchen,  sewing  on  the 
endless  seams  of  the  endless  wrappers.  Sometimes 
it  seemed  to  the  girl  as  if  wrappers  enough  were  being 
made  to  clothe  not  only  the  present,  but  future  genera 
tions  of  poor  women.  She  seemed  to  see  whole  armies 
of  hopeless,  overburdened  women,  all  arrayed  in  these 
slouching  garments,  crowding  the  foreground  of  the 
world. 

That  evening  little  Amabel,  who  had  developed  a 
painful  desire  to  make  herself  useful,  having  divined 
the  altered  state  of  the  family  finances,  was  pulling  out 
basting-threads,  with  a  puckered  little  face  bent  over 
her  work.  She  was  a  very  thin  child,  but  there  was 
an  incisive  vitality  in  her,  and  somehow  Fanny  and 
Ellen  contrived  to  keep  her  prettily  and  comfortably 
clothed. 

"  I've  got  to  do  my  duty  by  poor  Eva's  child,  if  I 
starve,"  Fanny  often  said. 

511 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

When  the  side  door  opened,  Ellen  and  her  mother 
thought  it  was  another  man  come  to  swell  the  com 
pany  in  the  dining-room. 

"  It  beats  all  how  men  like  to  come  and  sit  round  and 
talk  over  matters ;  for  my  part,  I  'ain't  got  any  time  to 
talk;  I've  got  to  work/'  remarked  Fanny. 

"That's  so,"  rejoined  Ellen.  She  looked  curiously 
like  her  mother  that  night,  and  spoke  like  her.  In  her 
heart  she  echoed  the  sarcasm  to  the  full.  She  despised 
those  men  for  sitting  hour  after  hour  in  a  store,  or  in 
the  house  of  some  congenial  spirit,  or  standing  on  a 
street  corner,  and  talking — talking,  she  was  sure,  to  no 
purpose.  As  for  herself,  she  had  done  what  she  thought 
right;  she  had,  as  it  were,  cut  short  the  thread  of  her 
happiness  of  life  for  the  sake  of  something  undefined 
and  rather  vague,  and  yet  as  mighty  in  its  demands 
for  her  allegiance  as  God.  And  it  was  done,  and  there 
was  no  use  in  talking  about  it.  She  had  her  wrappers 
to  make.  However,  she  told  herself,  extenuatingly, 
"Men  can't  sew,  so  they  can't  work  evenings.  They 
are  better  off  talking  here  than  they  would  be  in  the 
billiard-saloon."  Ellen,  at  that  time  of  her  life,  had  a 
slight,  unacknowledged  feeling  of  superiority  over  men  of 
her  own  class.  She  regarded  them  very  much  as  she  re 
garded  children,  with  a  sort  of  tolerant  good-will  and 
contempt.  Now,  suddenly,  she  raised  her  head  and 
listened.  "  That  isn't  another  man,  it's  a  woman — it's 
Abby,"  she  said  to  her  mother. 

"She  wouldn't  come  out  in  all  this  rain,"  replied 
Fanny.  As  she  spoke,  a  great,  wind-driven  wash  of 
it  came  over  the  windows. 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  said  Ellen,  and  she  jumped  up  and  opened 
the  dining-room  door. 

Abby  had  entered,  as  was  her  custom,  without  knock 
ing.  She  had  left  her  dripping  umbrella  in  the  entry, 
and  her  old  hat  was  flattened  on  to  her  head  with  wet, 

512 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

md  several  damp  locks  of  her  hair  straggled  from  under 
;t  and  clung  to  her  thin  cheeks.  She  still  held  up  her 
jvet  skirts  around  her,  as  she  had  held  them  out-of- 
iloors,  but  she  was  gesticulating  violently  with  her 
bther  hand.  She  was  repeating  what  she  had  said 
ibefore.  Ellen  had  heard  her  indistinctly  through  the 
(door. 

"Yes,  I  mean  just  what  I  say/'  she  cried.  "Get  up 
and  go  to  work,  if  you  are  men!  Stop  hanging  around 
stores  and  corners,  and  talking  about  the  tyranny  of 
(the  rich,  and  go  to  work,  and  make  them  pay  you 
;  something  for  it,  anyhow.  This  has  been  kept  up  long 
i  enough.  Get  up  and  go  to  work,  if  you  don't  want 
those  belonging  to  you  to  starve." 

Abby  caught  sight  of  Ellen,  pale  and  breathless, 
in  the  door,  with  her  mother  looking  over  her  shoulder, 
and  she  addressed  her  with  renewed  violence.  "Come 
here,  Ellen,"  she  said,  "and  put  yourself  on  my  side. 
We've  got  to  give  in." 

"You  go  away,"  cried  little  Amabel,  in  a  shrill  voice, 
looking  around  Ellen's  arm;  but  nobody  paid  any  at 
tention  to  her. 

"I  never  will,"  returned  Ellen,  with  a  great  flash, 
but  her  voice  trembled. 

"You've  got  to,"  said  Abby.  "I  tell  you  there's  no 
other  way." 

"  I'll  die  before  I  give  up,"  cried  Lee,  in  a  loud, 
threatening  voice. 

"  I'm  with  ye,"  said  Tom  Peel. 

Dixon  and  the  young  laster  who  sat  beside  him  looked 
at  each  other,  but  said  nothing.  Dixon  wrinkled  his 
forehead  over  his  pipe. 

"  Then  you'd  better  go  to  work  quick,  before  some 

that  I  know  of,  who  are  enough  sight  better  worth  saving 

than  you  are,  starve,"  replied  Abby,  unshrinkingly. 

"If  I  could  I  would  go  to  Lloyd's   and  open  it  on  my 

2  K  513 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

own  account  to-morrow.  I  believe  in  bravery,  but  noth 
ing  except  fools  and  swine  jump  over  precipices." 

Abby  passed  through  the  room,  sprinkling  rain 
drops  from  her  drenched  skirts,  and  went  into  the  kitch 
en  with  Ellen.  Fanny  cast  an  angry  glance  at  her, 
then  a  solicitous  one  at  her  dripping  garments. 

"Abby  Atkins,  you  haven't  got  any  rubbers  on/' 
said  she. 

"Rubbers!"  repeated  Abby. 

"  You  just  slip  off  those  wet  skirts,  and  Amabel  will 
fetch  you  down  Ellen's  old  black  petticoat  and  brown 
dress.  Amabel — " 

But  Abby  seated  herself  peremptorily  before  the 
kitchen  stove  and  extended  one  soaked  little  foot  in  its 
shabby  boot.  "I'm  past  thinking  or  caring  about 
wet  skirts,"  said  she.  "Good  Lord,  what  do  wet  skirts 
matter?  We  can't  make  wrappers  any  longer.  We 
had  to  sell  the  sewing-machine  yesterday  to  pay  the 
rent  or  be  turned  out,  and  we  haven't  got  a  thing  to 
eat  in  the  house  except  potatoes  and  a  little  flour.  We 
haven't  had  any  meat  for  a  week.  Nice  fare  for  a  man 
like  poor  father  and  a  girl  like  Maria !  We  have  come 
down  to  the  kitchen  fire  like  you,  but  we  can't  keep 
it  burning  as  late  as  this  The  rest  went  to  bed  an 
hour  ago  to  keep  warm.  Maria  has  got  more  cold. 
She  did  seem  better  one  spell,  but  now  she's  worse  again. 
Our  chamber  is  freezing  cold,  and  we  haven't  had  a 
fire  in  it  since  the  strike.  John  Sargent  has  ransacked 
every  town  within  twenty  miles  for  work,  but  he  can't 
get  any,  and  his  sick  sister  keeps  sending  to  him  for 
money.  He  looks  as  if  he  was  just  about  done,  too. 
He  wrent  off  somewhere  after  supper.  A  great  supper! 
He  don't  smoke  a  pipe  nowadays.  Father  don't  get 
the  medicine  he  ought  to  have,  and  that  cold  spell  he  just 
about  perished  for  a  little  whiskey.  The  bedroom 
was  like  ice  with  no  fire  in  the  sitting-room,  and  he 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

didn't  sleep  warm.  It's  one  awful  thing  after  another 
happening.  Did  you  know  Mamie  Brady  took  lauda 
num  last  night?" 

"Good  land!"  said  Fanny. 

"  Yes,  she  did.  Ed  Flynn  has  been  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  her  for  a  long  time,  and  she's  none  too  well 
balanced,  and  when  it  came  to  her  not  having  enough 
to  eat,  and  to  keep  her  warm,  and  her  mother  nag 
ging  at  her  all  the  time — you  know  what  an  awful  hard 
woman  her  mother  is — she  got  desperate.  She  gulped 
it  down  when  the  last  car  went  past  and  Ed  Flynn 
hadn't  come;  she  had  been  watchin'  out  for  him;  then 
she  told  her  mother,  and  her  mother  shook  her,  then 
run  for  Dr.  Fox,  and  he  called  in  Dr.  Lord,  and  they 
worked  with  a  stomach  -  pump  till  morning,  and  she 
isn't  out  of  danger  yet.  Then  that  isn't  all.  Willy 
Jones's  mother  is  failing.  He  was  over  to  our  house 
last  evening,  telling  us  about  it,  and  he  fairly  cried, 
poor  boy.  lie  said  he  actually  could  not  get  her  what 
she  needed  to  make  her  comfortable  this  awful  winter. 
It  was  all  he  could  do  with  odd  jobs  to  keep  the  roof 
over  their  heads,  that  she  hadn't  actually  enough  to  eat 
and  keep  her  warm.  It  seemed  as  if  he  would  die  when 
he  told  about  it.  And  that  isn't  all.  Those  little  Blake 
children  next  door  are  fairly  starving.  They  are  going 
around  to  the  neighbors'  swill-buckets  —  it's  a  fact  — 
just  like  little  hungry  dogs,  and  it's  precious  little 
they  find  in  them.  Mrs.  Wetherhed  has  let  her  sewing- 
machine  go,  and  Edward  Morse  is  going  to  be  sold  out 
for  taxes.  And  that  isn't  all. "  Abby  lowered  her  voice 
a  little.  She  cast  an  apprehensive  glance  at  the  door 
of  the  other  room,  and  at  Amabel.  "Mamie  Bemis 
has  gone  to  the  bad.  I  had  it  straight.  She's  in  Boston. 
She  didn't  have  enough  to  pay  for  her  board,  and  got 
desperate.  I  know  her  sister  did  wrong,  but  that  was 
no  reason  why  she  should  have,  and  I  don't  believe 

515 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

she  would  if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  strike.  It's  all  on 
account  of  the  strike.  There's  no  use  talking:  before 
the  sparrow  flies  in  the  eyes  of  the  tiger,  he'd  better 
count  the  cost." 

Fanny,  quite  white,  stood  staring  from  Abby  to  Ellen, 
and  back  again. 

Amabel  was  holding  fast  to  a  fold  of  Ellen's  skirt. 
Ellen  looked  rigid. 

"  I  knew  it  all  before,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice. 

Suddenly  Abby  jumped  up  and  caught  the  other 
girl  in  a  fierce  embrace.  "  Ellen,"  she  sobbed — "  Ellen, 
isn't  there  any  way  out  of  it?  I  can't  see — " 

Ellen  freed  herself  from  Abby  with  a  curious  impera 
tive  yet  gentle  motion,  then  she  opened  the  door  into 
the  other  room  again.  The  loud  clash  of  voices  hushed, 
and  every  man  faced  towards  her  standing  on  the  thresh 
old,  with  her  mother  and  Abby  and  little  Amabel  in 
the  background.  "I  want  to  say  to  you  all,"  said 
Ellen,  in  a  clear  voice,  "  that  I  think  I  did  wrong.  I  have 
been  wondering  if  I  had  not  for  some  time,  and  growing 
more  and  more  certain.  I  did  not  count  the  cost.  All  I 
thought  of  was  the  principle,  but  the  cost  is  a  part  of  the 
principle  in  this  world,  and  it  has  to  be  counted  in  with  it. 
I  see  now.  I  don't  think  the  strike  ought  ever  to  have 
been.  It  has  brought  about  too  much  suffering  upon 
those  who  were  not  responsible  for  it,  who  did  not  choose 
it  of  their  own  free  will.  There  are  children  starving, 
and  people  dying  and  breaking  their  hearts.  We  have 
brought  too  much  upon  ourselves  and  others.  I  am 
sorry  I  said  what  I  did  in  the  shop  that  day,  if  I  in 
fluenced  any  one.  Now  I  am  not  going  to  strike  any 
longer.  Let  us  all  accept  Mr.  Lloyd's  terms,  and  go 
back  to  work." 

But  Ellen's  voice  was  drowned  out  in  a  great  shout  of 
wrath  and  dissent  from  Lee.  He  directly  leaped  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  girl  took  this  attitude  on  account 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

of  Lloyd,  and  his  jealousy,  which  was  always  smoulder 
ing,  flamed. 

"Well,  I  guess  not!"  he  shouted.  "I  rather  guess 
not!  I've  struck,  and  I'm  going  to  stay  struck !  I  ain't 
goin'  to  back  out  because  a  girl  likes  the  boss,  damn 
him!" 

Andrew  and  the  young  laster  rose  and  moved  quietly 
before  Ellen.  Tom  Peel  said  nothing,  but  he  grinned 
imperturbably. 

"  I  'ain't  had  a  bit  of  tobacco,  and  the  less  said  about 
what  I've  had  to  eat  the  better,"  Lee  went  on,  in  a  loud, 
threatening  voice,  "but  I  ain't  going  to  give  up.  No, 
miss;  you've  het  up  the  fightin'  blood  in  me,  and  it 
ain't  so  easy  coolin'  of  it  down." 

The  door  opened,  and  Granville  Joy  entered.  He 
had  knocked  several  times,  but  nobody  had  heard  him. 
He  looked  inquiringly  from  one  to  another,  then  moved 
beside  Andrew  and  the  laster. 

Dixon  got  up.  "  It  looks  to  me  as  if  it  was  too  soon 
to  be  giving  up  now,"  he  said. 

"  It's  easy  for  a  man  who's  got  nobody  dependent  upon 
him  to  talk,"  cried  Abby. 

"I  won't  give  up!"  cried  Dixon,  looking  straight  at 
Ellen,  and  ignoring  Abby. 

"  That's  so,"  said  Lee.  "  We  don't  give  up  our  rights 
for  bosses,  or  bosses'  misses." 

As  he  said  that  there  was  a  concerted  movement  of 
Andrew,  the  laster,  and  Granville.  Granville  was 
much  slighter  than  Lee,  but  suddenly  his  right  arm 
shot  out,  and  the  other  man  went  down  like  a  log.  An 
drew  followed  him  up  with  a  kick. 

"Get  out  of  my  house,"  he  shouted,  "and  never  set 
foot  in  it  again!  Out  with  ye!" 

Lee  was  easily  cowed.  He  did  not  attempt  to  make 
any  resistance,  but  gathered  himself  up,  muttering, 
and  moved  before  the  three  into  the  entry,  where  he 

517 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

had  left  his  coat  and  hat.  Dixon  and  Peel  followec 
him.  When  the  door  was  shut,  Ellen  turned  to  the 
others,  with  a  quieting  hand  on  Amabel's  head,  whci 
was  clinging  to  her,  trembling. 

"  I  think  it  will  be  best  to  talk  to  John  Sargent,"  said 
she.  "I  think  a  committee  had  better  be  appointed 
to  wait  upon  Mr.  Lloyd  again,  and  ask  him  to  open  the 
factory.  I'm  not  going  to  strike  any  longer." 

"I'm  sure  I'm  not,"  said  Abby. 

"Abby  and  I  are  not  going  to  strike  any  longer," 
said  Ellen,  in  an  indescribably  childlike  way,  which 
yet  carried  enormous  weight  with  it. 


CHAPTER  LVII 

ELLEN  had  not  arrived  at  her  decision  with  regard 
to  the  suike  as  suddenly  as  it  may  have  seemed.  All 
winter,  ever  since  the  strike,  Ellen  had  been  wondering, 
not  whether  the  principle  of  the  matter  was  correct  or 
not,  that  she  never  doubted;  she  never  swerved  in  her 
belief  concerning  the  cruel  tyranny  of  the  rich  and  the 
helpless  suffering  of  the  poor,  and  their  good  reason  for 
making  a  stand,  but  she  doubted  more  and  more  the 
wisdom  of  it.  She  used  to  sit  for  hours  up  in  her  cham 
ber  after  her  father  and  mother  had  gone  to  bed,  wrapped 
up  in  an  old  shawl  against  the  cold,  resting  her  elbows 
on  the  window-sill  and  her  chin  on  her  two  hands, 
staring  out  into  the  night,  and  reflecting.  Her  youth 
ful  enthusiasm  carried  her  like  a  leaping-pole  to  conclu 
sions  beyond  her  years.  "  I  wonder,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"  if,  after  all,  this  inequality  of  possessions  is  not  a  part 
of  the  system  of  creation,  if  the  righting  of  them  is  not 
beyond  the  flaming  sword  of  the  Garden  of  Eden?  I 
wonder  if  the  one  who  tries  to  right  them  forcibly  is  not 
meddling,  and  usurping  the  part  of  the  Creator,  and 
bringing  down  wrath  and  confusion  not  only  upon  his 
own  head,  but  upon  the  heads  of  others?  I  wonder  if 
it  is  wise,  in  order  to  establish  a  principle,  to  make  those 
who  have  no  voice  in  the  matter  suffer  for  it — the  help 
less  women  and  children?"  She  even  thought  with  a 
sort  of  scornful  sympathy  of  Sadie  Peel,  who  could 
not  have  her  nearseal  cape,  and  had  not  wished  to  strike. 
She  reflected,  as  she  had  done  so  many  times  before, 
that  the  world  was  very  old — thousands  of  years  old — 

519 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  inequality  was  as  old  as  the  world.  Might  it  not 
even  be  a  condition  of  its  existence,  the  shifting  of 
weights  which  kept  it  to  its  path  in  the  scheme  of  the 
uaiverse?  And  yet  always  she  went  back  to  her  firm 
belief  that  the  strikers  were  right,  and  always,  al 
though  she  loved  Robert  Lloyd,  she  denounced  him. 
Even  when  it  came  to  her  abandoning  her  position 
with  regard  to  the  strike,  she  had  not  the  slight 
est  thought  of  effecting  thereby  a  reconciliation  with 
Robert. 

For  the  first  time,  that  night  when  she  had  gone  to 
bed,  after  announcing  her  determination  to  go  back 
to  work,  she  questioned  her  affection  for  Robert.  Be 
fore  she  had  always  admitted  it  to  herself  with  a  sort 
of  shamed  and  angry  dignity.  "Other  women  feel 
so  about  men,  and  why  should  I  not?"  she  had  said; 
"  and  I  shall  never  fail  to  keep  the  feeling  behind  more 
important  things."  She  had  accepted  the  fact  of  it 
with  childlike  straightforwardness  as  she  accepted  all 
other  facts  of  life,  and  now  she  wondered  if  she  really 
did  care  for  him  so  much.  She  thought  over  and  over 
everything  Abby  had  said,  and  saw  plainly  before  her 
mental  vision  those  poor  women  parting  with  their 
cherished  possessions,  the  little  starving  children  snatch 
ing  at  the  refuse-buckets  at  the  neighbors'  back  doors. 
She  saw  with  incredulous  shame,  and  something  be 
tween  pity  and  scorn,  Mamie  Bemis,  who  had  pone 
wrong,  and  Mamie  Brady,  who  had  taken  her  fool'sh, 
ill-balanced  life  in  her  own  hands.  She  remembered 
every  word  which  she  had  said  to  the  men  on  the  morn 
ing  of  the  strike,  and  how  they  had  started  up  and 
left  their  machines.  "I  did  it  all,"  she  told  herself. 
"I  am  icsponsible  for  it  all — all  this  suffering,  for  those 
hungry  little  children,  for  that  possible  death,  for  ihe 
ruin  of  another  girl."  Then  she  told  herself,  witn  a 
stern  sense  of  justice,  that  back  of  her  responsibility 

520 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

jcame  Robert  Lloyd's.  If  he  had  not  cut  the  wages 
it  would  never  have  been.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she 
almost  hated  him,  and  that  she  could  not  wait  to  strive 
to  undo  the  harm  which  she  had  clone.  Sne  could  not 
wait  for  morning  to  come. 

She  lay  awake  all  night  in  a  fever  of  impatience. 
When  she  went  down -stairs  her  eyes  were  brilliant, 
there  were  red  spots  on  her  cheeks,  her  lips  were  tense, 
her  whole  face  looked  as  if  she  were  strained  lor  some 
leap  of  action.  She  took  hold  of  everything  she  touched 
with  a  hard  grip.  Her  father  and  mother  kept  watch 
ing  her  anxiously.  Directly  after  breakfast  Ellen  put 
on  her  hat  and  coat. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  asked  Fanny. 

"  I  am  going  over  to  see  John  Sargent,  and  ask  him 
to  get  some  other  men  and  go  to  see  Mr.  Lloyd,  and  tell 
him  we  are  willing  to  go  to  work  again,"  replied  Ellen. 

Ellen  discovered,  when  she  reached  the  Atkins  house, 
that  John  Sargent  had  already  resolved  upon  his  course 
of  action. 

"  The  first  thing  he  said  when  he  came  in  last  night 
was  that  he  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer,  and  he  was 
going  to  see  the  others,  and  go  to  Lloyd,  and  ask  him 
to  open  the  shop  on  his  own  terms,"  said  Abby.  "  I  told 
him  how  we  felt  about  it." 

"  Yes,  I  am  ready  to  go  back  whenever  the  factory  is 
opened,"  said  Ellen.  "  I  am  glad  he  has  gone." 

Ellen  did  not  remain  long.  She  was  anxious  to  re 
turn  and  finish  some  wrappers  she  had  on  hand.  Abby 
promised  to  go  over  and  let  her  know  the  result  of  the 
interview  with  Lloyd. 

It  was  not  until  evening  that  Abby  came  over,  and 
John  Sargent  with  her.  Lloyd  had  not  been  at  home 
in  the  morning,  and  they  had  been  forced  to  wait  until 
late  afternoon.  The  two  entered  the  dining-room,  where 
Ellen  and  her  mother  sat  at  work. 

521 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Abby  spoke  at  once,  and  to  the  point.  "  Well/'  said 
she,  "the  shop's  going  to  be  opened  to-morrow." 

"On  what  terms?"  asked  Ellen. 

"On  the  boss's,  of  course/'  replied  Abby,  in  a  hard 
voice. 

"It's  the  only  tiling  to  do/'  said  Sargent,  with  a  sort 
of  stolid  assertion.  "  If  we  are  willing  to  be  crushed  un 
der  the  Juggernaut  of  principle,  we  haven't  any  right 
to  force  others  under,  and  that's  what  we  are  doing." 

"Bread  without  butter  is  better  than  no  bread  at 
all,"  said  Abby.  "We've  got  to  live  in  the  sphere 
in  which  Providence  has  placed  us."  The  girl  said 
"  Providence  "  with  a  sarcastic  emphasis. 

Andrew  was  looking  at  Sargent.  "Do  you  think 
there  will  be  any  trouble?"  he  asked. 

Sargent  hesitated,  with  a  glance  at  Fanny.  "  I  don't 
know;  I  hope  not,"  said  he.  "Lee  and  Dixon  are  op 
posed  to  giving  in,  and  they  are  talking  hard  to-night 
in  the  store.  Then  some  of  the  men  have  joined  the 
union  since  the  strike,  and  of  course  they  swear  by  it, 
because  it  has  been  helping  them,  and  they  won't  ap 
prove  of  giving  up.  But  I  doubt  if  there  will  be  much 
trouble.  I  guess  the  majority  want  to  go  to  work,  even 
the  union  men.  The  amount  of  it  is,  it  has  been  such  a 
tough  winter  it  has  taken  the  spirit  out  of  the  poor  souls. " 
Sargent,  evidently,  in  yielding  was  resisting  himself. 

"  You  don't  think  there  will  be  any  danger?"  Fanny 
said,  anxiously,  looking  at  Ellen. 

"Oh  no,  there's  no  danger  for  the  girls,  anyhow.  I 
guess  there's  enough  men  to  look  out  for  them.  There's 
no  need  for  you  to  worry,  Mrs.  Brewster." 

"  Mr.  Lloyd  did  not  offer  to  do  anything  better  about 
the  wages?"  asked  Ellen. 

Sargent  shook  his  head. 

"Catch  him!"  said  Abby,  bitterly. 

Ellen  had  a  feeling  as  if  she  were  smiting  in  the 

522 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

jj'face  that  image  of  Robert  which  always  dwelt  in  her 
heart. 

"  Well/'  said  Abby,  with  a  mirthless  laugh,  "there's 
•  one  thing:  according  to  the  Scriptures,  it  is  as  hard  for 
s  the  rich  man  to  get  into  heaven  as  it  is  for  the  poor  men 
.'to  get  into  their  factories." 

"  ^ou  don't  suppose  there  will  be  any  danger?"  Fanny 
said  again,  anxiously. 

"Danger— no;  who's  afraid  of  Amos  Lee  and  a  few 
like  him?"  cried  Abby,  contemptuously;  "and  Nahum 
Deals  is  safe.  He's  going  to  be  tried  next  month,  they 
say,  but  they'll  make  it  imprisonment  for  life,  because 
they  think  he  wasn't  in  his  right  mind.  If  he  was  here 
we  might  be  afraid,  but  there's  nobody  now  that  will  do 
anything  but  talk.  I  ain't  afraid.  I'm  going  to  march 
up  to  the  shop  to-morrow  morning  and  go  to  work,  and 
I'd  like  to  see  anybody  stop  me." 

However,  before  they  left,  John  Sargent  spoke  aside 
with  Andrew,  and  told  him  of  a  plan  for  the  returning 
workmen  to  meet  at  the  corner  of  a  certain  street,  and 
go  in  a  body  to  the  factory,  and  suggested  that  there 
might  be  pickets  posted  by  the  union  men,  and  Andrew 
resolved  to  go  with  Ellen. 

The  next  morning  the  rain  had  quite  ceased,  and  there 
was  a  faint  something,  rather  a  reminiscence  than  a 
suggestion,  of  early  spring  in  the  air.  People  caught 
themselves  looking  hard  at  the  elm  branches  to  see 
if  they  were  acquiring  the  virile  fringe  of  spring  or 
if  their  eyes  deceived  them,  and  wondered,  with  respect 
to  the  tips  of  maple  and  horse-chestnut  branches,  whether 
or  not  they  were  swollen  red  and  glossy.  Sometimes 
they  sniffed  incredulously  when  a  soft  gust  of  south 
wind  seemed  laden  with  fresh  blossom  fragrance. 

"I  declare,  if  I  didn't  know  better,  I  should  think  I 
smelled  apple  blossoms,"  said  Maria. 

"Stuff!"  returned  Abby.     She  was  marching  along 
523 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

with  an  alert,  springy  motion  of  her  lean  little  body. 
She  was  keenly  alive  to  the  situation,  and  scented  some 
thing  besides  apple  blossoms.  She  had  tried  to  induce 
Maria  to  remain  at  home.  "I  don't  know  but  there'll 
be  trouble,  and  if  there  is,  you'll  be  just  in  the  way," 
she  told  her  before  they  left  the  house,  but  not  in  their 
parents'  hearing. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  believe  there'll  be  any.  Folks  will  be  too 
glad  to  get  back  to  work,"  replied  Maria.  She  had  a 
vein  of  obstinacy,  gentle  as  she  was ;  then,  too,  she  had  a 
reason  which  no  one  suspected  for  wishing  to  be  present. 
She  would  not  yield  when  John  Sargent  begged  her 
privately  not  to  go.  It  was  just  because  she  was  afraid 
there  might  be  trouble,  and  he  was  going  to  be  in  it,  that 
she  could  not  bear  to  stay  at  home  herself. 

Andrew  had  insisted  upon  accompanying  Ellen  in 
spite  of  her  remonstrances.  "I've  got  an  errand  down 
to  the  store,"  he  said,  evasively;  but  Ellen  understood. 

"  I  don't  think  there  is  any  danger,  and  there  wouldn't 
be  any  danger  for  me — not  for  the  girls,  sure,"  she  said ; 
but  he  persisted. 

"  Don't  you  say  a  word  to  your  mother  to  scare  her," 
he  whispered.  But  they  had  not  been  gone  long  before 
Fanny  followed  them,  Mrs.  Zelotes  watching  her  fur 
tively  from  a  window  as  she  went  by. 

All  the  returning  emploj-e's  met,  as  agreed  upon,  at 
the  corner  of  a  certain  street,  and  marched  in  a  solid 
body  towards  Lloyd's.  The  men  insisted  upon  placing 
the  girls  in  the  centre  of  this  body,  although  some  of 
them  rebelled,  notably  Sadie  Peel.  She  was  on  hand, 
laughing  and  defiant. 

"I  guess  I  ain't  afraid,"  she  proclaimed.  "Father's 
keepin'  on  strikin',  but  I  guess  he  won't  see  his  own 
daughter  hurt;  and  now  I'm  goiii'  to  have  my  nearseal 
cape,  if  it  is  late  in  the  season.  They're  cheaper  now, 
that's  one  good  thing.  On  some  accounts  the  strike  has 

524 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

been  a  lucky  thing  for  me. "  She  marched  along,  swing 
ing  her  arms  jauntily.  Ellen  and  Maria  and  Abby  were 
close  together.  Andrew  was  on  the  right  of  Ellen, 
Granville  Joy  behind ;  the  young  laster,  who  had  called 
so  frequently  evenings,  was  with  him.  John  Sargent 
and  Willy  Jones  were  on  the  left.  They  all  walked  in 
the  middle  of  the  street  like  an  army.  It  was  covertly 
understood  that  there  might  be  trouble.  Some  of  the 
younger  men  from  time  to  time  put  hands  on  their 
pockets,  and  a  number  carried  stout  sticks. 

The  first  intimation  of  disturbance  came  when  they 
met  an  electric-car,  and  all  moved  to  one  side  to  let 
it  pass.  The  car  was  quite  full  of  people  going  to 
another  town,  some  thirty  miles  distant,  to  work  in  a 
large  factory  there.  Nearly  every  man  and  woman 
on  the  car  belonged  to  the  union. 

As  this  car  slid  past  a  great  yell  went  up  from  the 
occupants ;  men  on  the  platforms  swung  their  arms  in 
execration  and  derision.  "Sc-ab,  sc-ab!"  they  called. 
A  young  fellow  leaped  from  the  rear  platform,  caught 
up  a  stone  and  flung  it  at  the  returning  Lloyd  men,  but 
it  went  wide  of  its  mark.  Then  he  was  back  on  the 
platform  with  a  running  jump,  and  one  of  the  Lloyd 
men  threw  a  stone,  which  missed  him.  The  yell  of 
"Scab,  scab!"  went  up  with  renewed  vigor,  until  it 
died  out  of  hearing  along  with  the  rumble  of  the  car. 

"  Sometimes  I  wish  I  had  joined  the  union  and  stuck 
it  out,"  said  one  of  the  Lloyd  men,  gloomily. 

"  For  the  Lord's  sake,  don't  show  the  white  feather 
now!"  cried  a  young  fellow  beside  him,  who  \vas  striding 
on  with  an  eager,  even  joyous  outlook.  He  had  fight 
ing  blood,  and  it  was  up,  and  he  took  a  keen  delight 
in  the  situation. 

"It's  easy  to  talk,"  grumbled  the  other  man.  "I 
don't  know  but  all  our  help  lies  in  the  union,  and  we've 
been  a  pack  of  fools  not  to  go  in.  with  them)  because  we 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

hoped  Lloyd  would  weaken  and  take  us  back.  He 
hasn't  weakened ;  we've  had  to.  Good  God,  them  that's 
rich  have  it  their  own  way!" 

"  I'd  have  joined  the  union  in  a  minute,  and  got  a  job, 
and  got  my  nearseal  cape,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  father," 
said  Sadie  Peel,  with  a  loud  laugh.  "  But,  my  land!  if 
father'd  caught  me  joinin'  the  union  I  dun'no'  as  there 
would  have  been  anything  left  of  me  to  wear  the  cape." 

They  all  marched  along  with  no  disturbance  until 
they  reached  the  corner  of  the  street  into  which  they  had 
to  turn  in  order  to  approach  Lloyd's.  There  they  were 
confronted  by  a  line  of  pickets,  stationed  there  by  the 
union,  and  the  real  trouble  began.  Yells  of  "Scab, 
scab!"  filled  the  air. 

"Good  land, I  ain't  no  more  of  a  scab  than  you  be!" 
shrieked  Sadie  Peel,  in  a  loud,  angry  voice.  "Scab 
yourself!  Touch  me  if  you  dasse!" 

Many  young  men  among  the  returning  force  had 
stout  sticks  in  their  hands.  Granville  Joy  was  one  of 
them.  Andrew,  who  was  quite  unarmed,  pressed  in  be 
fore  Ellen.  Granville  caught  him  by  the  arm  and  tried 
to  draw  him  back. 

"Look  here,  Mr.  Brewster,"  he  said,  "you  keep  in 
the  background  a  little.  I  am  young  and  strong,  and 
here  are  Sargent  and  Mendon.  You'd  better  keep 
back." 

But  Ellen,  with  a  spring  which  was  effectual  because 
so  utterly  uncalculated,  was  before  Granville  and  her 
father,  and  them  all.  She  reasoned  it  out  in  a  second 
that  she  was  responsible  for  the  strike,  and  that  she 
would  be  in  the  front  of  whatever  danger  there  was  in 
consequence.  Her  slight  little  figure  passed  them  all 
before  they  knew  what  she  \vas  doing.  She  was  in  the 
very  front  of  the  little  returning  anny.  She  saw  the 
threatening  faces  of  the  pickets;  she  half  turned,  and 
waved  an  arm  of  encouragement,  like  a  general  in  a 

526 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

battle.  "Strike  if  you  want  to,"  she  cried  out,  in  her 
sweet  young  voice.  "  If  you  want  to  kill  a  girl  for  going 
back  to  work  to  save  herself  and  her  friends  from  starva 
tion,  do  it.  I  am  not  afraid !  But  kill  me,  if  you  must 
kill  anybody,  because  I  am  the  one  that  started  the 
strike.  Strike  if  you  want  to." 

The  opposing  force  moved  aside  with  an  almost  im 
perceptible  motion.  Ellen  looked  like  a  beautiful  child, 
her  light  hair  tossed  around  her  rosy  face,  her  eyes  full 
of  the  daring  of  perfect  confidence.  She  in  reality 
did  not  feel  one  throb  of  fear.  She  passed  the  picket- 
line,  and  turned  instinctively  and  marched  backward 
with  her  blue  eyes  upon- them  all.  Abby  Atkins  sprang 
forward  to  Ellen's  side,  with  Sargent  and  Joy  and 
Willy  Jones  and  Andrew.  Andrew  kept  calling  to 
Ellen  to  come  back,  but  she  did  not  heed  him. 

The  little  army  was  several  rods  from  the  pickets 
before  a  shot  rang  out,  but  that  was  fired  into  the  air. 
However,  it  was  followed  by  a  fierce  clamor  of  "  Scab  " 
and  a  shower  of  stones,  which  did  little  harm.  The 
Lloyds  marched  on  without  a  word,  except  from  Sadie 
Peel.  She  turned  round  with  a  derisive  shout. 

"Scab  yourselves!"  she  shrieked.  "You  dassen't 
fire  at  me.  You're  scabs  yourselves,  you  be!" 

"Scabs,  scabs!""  shouted  the  men,  moving  forward. 

"Scab  yourself!"  shouted  Sadie  Peel. 

Abby  Atkins  caught  hold  of  her  arm  and  shook  her 
violently.  "Shut  up,  can't  you,  Sadie  Peel,"  she 
said. 

"  I'll  shut  up  when  I  get  ready,  Abby  Atkins!  I  ain't 
afraid  of  them  if  you  be.  They  dassen't  hit  me.  Scab, 
scab!"  the  girl  yelled  back,  with  a  hysteric  laugh. 

"Don't  that  girl  know  anything?"  growled  a  man 
behind  her. 

"Shut  up,  Sadie  Peel,"  said  Abby  Atkins. 

"  I  ain't  afraid  if  you  be,  and  I  wtm't  shut  up  till  I  get 


THE     PORTION    OF     LABOR 

ready,  for  you  or  anybody  else.  I'm  goin'  to  have  my 
nearseal  cape!  Hi!" 

"I  ain't  afraid/'  said  Abby,  contemptuously,  "but 
I've  got  sense." 

Maria  pressed  close  to  Sadie  Peel.  "  Please  do  keep 
still,  Sadie,"  she  pleaded.  "  Let  us  get  into  the  fac 
tory  as  quietly  as  we  can.  Think,  if  anybody  was 
hurt." 

"I  ain't  afraid,"  shrieked  the  girl,  with  a  toss  of  her 
red  fringe,  and  she  laughed  like  a  parrot.  Abby  At 
kins  gripped  her  arm  so  fiercely  that  she  made  her  cry 
out  with  pain.  "If  you  don't  keep  still!"  she  said, 
threateningly. 

Willy  Jones  was  walking  as  near  as  he  could,  and 
he  carried  his  right  arm  half  extended,  as  if  to  guard  her. 
Now  and  then  Abby  turned  and  gave  him  a  push  back 
ward. 

"  The}^  won't  trouble  us  girls,  and  you  might  as  well 
let  us  and  the  men  that  have  sticks  go  first/'  she  said 
in  a  whisper. 

"If  you  think — "  began  the  young  fellow,  coloring. 

"Oh,  I  know  you  ain't  afraid,"  said  Abby,  "but 
you've  got  your  mother  to  think  of,  and  there's  no  use 
in  running  into  danger." 

The  pickets  were  gradually  left  behind;  they  were, 
in  truth,  half-hearted.  Many  of  them  had  worked  in 
Lloyd's,  and  had  small  mind  to  injure  their  old  com 
rades.  They  were  not  averse  to  a  great  show  of  in 
dignation  and  bluster,  but  when  it  came  to  more  they 
hesitated. 

Presently  the  company  came  into  the  open  space 
before  Lloyd's.  Robert  and  Lyman  Risley  and  several 
foremen  were  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  The 
windows  of  the  factory  were  filled  with  faces,  and  de 
risive  cries  came  from  them.  Lloyd's  tall  shaft  of  chim 
ney  was  plumed  with  smoke.  The  employes  advanced 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

towards  the  stairs,  when  suddenly  Amos  Lee,  Dixon, 
and  a  dozen  others  appeared,  coming  with  a  rush  from 
around  a  corner  of  the  building,  and  again  the  air  was 
filled  with  the  cry  of  "Scab!"  Ellen  and  Abby  linked 
arms  and  sprang  forward  before  the  men  with  an  im 
petuous  rush,  with  Joy  and  Willy  Jones  and  Andrew 
following.  Ellen,  as  she  rushed  on  towards  the  factory 
stairs,  was  conscious  of  no  fear  at  all,  but  rather  of  a 
sort  of  exaltation  of  courage.  It  did  not  really  occur 
to  her  that  she  could  be  hurt,  that  it  could  be  in  the  heart 
of  Lee  or  Dixon,  or  any  of  them,  actually  to  harm  her. 
She  was  throbbing  and  intense  with  indignation  and 
resolution.  Into  that  factory  to  her  work  she  was 
bound  to  go.  All  that  intimidated  her  in  the  least  was 
the  fear  for  her  father.  She  rushed  as  fast  as  she  could 
that  her  father  might  not  get  before  her  and  be  hurt 
in  some  way. 

"Scab!  scab!"  shouted  Lee  and  the  others. 

"Scab  yourself!"  shrieked  Sadie  Peel.  Her  father 
wa*  one  of  the  opposing  party,  and  that  gave  her  perfect 
audacity.  "Look  out  you  don't  hit  me,  dad,"  she 
cried  to  him.  "I'm  goin'  to  get  my  nearseal  cape. 
Don't  you  hit  your  daughter,  Tom  Peel!"  She  raced 
on  with  a  sort  of  hoppity-skip.  She  caught  a  young 
man  near  her  by  the  arm  and  forced  him  into  the  same 
dancing  motion. 

They  were  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  when  Robert, 
watching,  saw  Lee  with  a  pistol  in  his  hand  aim 
straight  at  Ellen.  He  sprang  before  her,  but  Risley 
was  nearer,  and  the  shot  struck  him.  When  Risley 
fell,  a  great  cry,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  tell 
whether  of  triumph  or  horror,  went  up  from  the  open 
windows  of  the  other  factories,  and  men  came  swarm 
ing  out.  Lee  and  his  companions  vanished. 

A  great  crowd  gathered  around  Risley  until  the 
doctors  came  and  ordered  them  away,  and  carried  him 
2 1  5-29 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

in  the  ambulance  to  the  hospital.  lie  was  not  dead, 
but  evidently  very  seriously  injured. 

When  the  ambulance  had  rolled  out  of  sight,  the 
Lloyd  employe's  entered  the  factory,  and  the  hum 
of  machinery  began. 

Fanny  and  Andrew  stood  together  before  the  factory 
after  Ellen  had  entered.  Andrew  had  started  when  he 
had  seen  his  wife. 

"You  here?"  he  said. 

"I  rather  guess  I'm  here,"  returned  Fanny.  "Do 
you  s'pose  I  was  goin'  to  stay  at  home,  and  not  know 
whether  you  and  her  were  shot  dead  or  not?" 

"I  guess  it's  all  safe  now,"  said  Andrew.  He  was 
very  pale.  He  looked  at  the  blood-stained  place  where 
Lyman  Risley  had  lain.  "It's  awful  work,"  he  said. 

"Who  did  it?"  asked  Fanny,  sharply.  "I  heard 
the  shot  just  before  I  got  here." 

"  I  don't  know  for  sure,  and  guess  it's  better  I  don't," 
replied  Andrew,  sternly. 

Then  all  at  once  as  they  stood  there  a  woman  came 
up  with  a  swift,  gliding  motion  and  a  long  trail  of  black 
skirts  straight  to  Fanny,  who  was  the  only  woman 
there.  There  were  still  a  great  many  men  and  boys 
standing  about.  The  woman,  Cynthia  Lennox,  caught 
Fanny's  arm  with  a  nervous  grip.  Her  finely  cut  face 
was  very  white  under  the  nodding  plumes  of  her  black 
bonnet. 

"Is  he  in  there?"  she  asked,  in  a  strained  voice, 
pointing  to  the  shop. 

Fanny  stared  at  her.  She  was  half  dazed.  She 
iid  not  know  whether  she  was  referring  to  the  wounded 
man  or  Robert. 

Andrew  was  quicker  in  his  perceptions. 

"They  carried  him  off  to  the  hospital  in  the  am 
bulance,"  he  told  her.  Then  he  added,  as  gently  as 
if  he  had  been  addressing  Ellen:  "I  guess  he  wasn't 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

hurt  so  very  bad.  He  came  to  before  they  took  him 
away." 

"You  don't  know  anything  about  it,"  Fanny  said, 
sharply.  "I  heard  them  say  something  about  his 
eyes." 

"His  eyes!"  gasped  Cynthia.  She  held  tightly  to 
Fanny,  who  looked  at  her  with  a  sudden  passion  of 
sympathy  breaking  through  her  curiosity. 

"  Oh,  I  guess  he  wasn't  hurt  so  very  bad ;  he  did  come 
to.  I  heard  him  speak,"  she  said,  soothingly.  She 
laid  her  hard  hand  over  Cynthia's  slim  one. 

"They  took  him  to  the  hospital?" 

"Yes,  in  the  ambulance." 

"Is — my  nephew  in  there?" 

"No;  he  went  with  him." 

Cynthia  looked  at  the  other  woman  with  an  expres 
sion  of  utter  anguish  and  pleading. 

"Look  here,"  said  Fanny;  "the  hospital  ain't  very 
far  from  here.  Suppose  we  go  up  there  and  ask  how 
he  ^s?  We  could  call  out  your  nephew." 

"  Will  you  go  with  me?"  asked  Cynthia,  with  a  heart 
breaking  gasp. 

If  Ellen  could  have  seen  her  at  that  moment,  she 
would  have  recognized  her  as  the  woman  whom  she 
had  known  in  her  childhood.  She  was  an  utter  sur 
prise  to  Fanny,  but  her  sympathy  leaped  to  meet  her 
need  like  the  steel  to  the  magnet. 

"Of  course  I  will,"  she  said,  heartily. 

"I  would,"  said  Andrew — "I  would  go  with  her, 
Fanny." 

"Of  course  I  will,"  said  Fanny;  "and  you  had  bet 
ter  go  home,  I  guess,  Andrew,  and  see  how  I  left  the 
kitchen  fire.  I  don't  know  but  the  dampers  are  all 
wide  open." 

Fanny  and  Cynthia  hastened  in  one  direction 
towards  the  hospital,  and  Andrew  towards  home; 

531 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

but  he  paused  for  a  minute,  and  looked  thought 
fully  up  at  the  humming  pile  of  Lloyd's.  The  bat 
tle  was  over  and  the  strike  was  ended.  He  drew 
a  great  sigh,  and  went  home  to  see  to  the  kitchen 
fire. 


CHAPTER  LVIH 

LYMAN  RlSLEY  was  very  seriously  injured.  Then 
was,  as  the  men  had  reported,  danger  for  his  eyes 
When  Robert  was  called  into  the  reception-room  of  the 
hospital  to  see  his  aunt,  he  scarcely  recognized  her 
Her  soft,  white  hair  was  tossed  about  her  temples,  hei 
cheeks  were  burning.  She  ran  up  to  him  like  an  eagei 
child  and  clutched  his  arm. 

"How  is  he?"  she  demanded.     "Tell  me  quick!" 

"  They  are  doing  everything  they  can  for  him.  Why, 
don't,  poor  Aunt  Cynthia  1" 

"His  eyes,  they  said — " 

"  I  hope  he  will  come  out  all  right.  Don't,  dear  Aunt 
Cynthia."  The  young  man  put  his  arm  around  his 
aunt  and  spoke  soothingly,  blushing  like  a  girl  before 
this  sudden  revelation  of  an  under-stratum  of  delicacy 
in  a  woman's  heart. 

Cynthia  lost  control  of  herself  completely ;  or,  rather, 
the  true  self  of  her  rose  uppermost,  shattering  the  sur 
face  ice  of  her  reserve.  "Oh,"  she  said — "oh,  if  he — 
if  he  is — blind,  if  he  is — I — I — will  lead  him  everywhere 
all  the  rest  of  his  life;  I  will,  Robert." 

"Of  course  you  will,  dear  Aunt  Cynthia,"  replied 
Robert,  soothingly. 

Suddenly  Cynthia's  face  took  on  a  new  expression. 
Shs  looked  at  Robert,  deadly  pale,  and  her  jaw  dropped. 
"He  will  not — die,"  she  said,  with  stiff  lips.  "It  is 
not  as  bad  as  that?" 

"Oh  no,  no;  I  am  sure  he  will  not,"  Robert  cried, 
wonderingly  and  pityingly.  "Don't,  Aunt  Cynthia." 

533 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  If  he  dies,"  she  said — "  if  he  dies — and  he  has  loved 
me  all  this  time,  and  I  have  never  done  anything  for 
him — I  cannot  bear  it;  I  will  not  bear  it;  I  will  not, 
Robert!" 

"Oh,  he  isn't  going  to  die,  Aunt  Cynthia." 

" I  want  to  go  to  him,"  she  said.     "  I  will  go  to  him." 

Robert  looked  helplessly  from  her  to  Fanny.  "I 
am  afraid  you  can't  just  now,  Aunt  Cynthia,"  he  re 
plied. 

Fanny  came  resolutely  to  his  assistance.  "  Of  course 
you  can't,  Miss  Lennox,"  she  said.  "  The  doctors  won't 
let  you  see  him  now.  You  would  do  him  more  harm 
than  good.  You  don't  want  to  do  him  harm!" 

"  No,  I  don't  want  to  do  him  harm,"  returned  Cynthia, 
in  a  wailing,  hysterical  voice.  She  threw  herself  down 
upon  a  sofa  and  began  sobbing  like  a  child,  with  her 
face  hidden. 

A  young  doctor  entered  and  stood  looking  at  her. 

Robert  turned  to  him.  "  It  is  my  aunt,  and  she  is 
agitated  over  Mr.  Risley's  accident/'  he  said,  coloring 
a  little. 

Instantly  the  young  physician's  face  lost  its  expres 
sion  of  astonishment  and  assumed  the  soothing  gloss 
of  his  profession.  "Oh,  my  dear  Miss  Lennox,"  he 
said,  "there  is  no  cause  for  agitation,  I  assure  you. 
Everything  is  being  done  for  Mr.  Risley." 

"Will  he  be  blind?"  gasped  Cynthia,  with  a  great 
vehemence  of  woe,  which  seemed  to  gainsay  the  fact 
of  her  years.  It  seemed  as  if  such  an  outburst  of  emo 
tion  could  come  only  from  a  child  all  unacquainted 
with  grief  and  unable  to  control  it. 

The  young  doctor  laughed  blandly.  "Blind?  No, 
indeed,"  he  replied.  "He  might  have  been  blind  had 
this  happened  twenty-five  years  ago,  but  with  the  re 
sources  of  the  present  day  it  is  a  different  matter.  Pray 
don't  alarm  yourself,  dear  Miss  Lennox." 

534 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Can  you  call  a  carriage  for  my  aunt?"  asked  Rob 
ert.  He  went  close  to  Cynthia  and  laid  a  hand  on 
her  slender  shoulder.  "  I  am  going  to  have  a  carriage 
come  for  you,  and  perhaps  Mrs.  Brewster  will  be  will 
ing  to  go  home  with  you  in  it." 

"Of  course  I  will,"  replied  Fanny. 

"  You  hear  what  Dr.  Payson  says,  that  there  is  noth 
ing  to  be  alarmed  about,"  Robert  said,  in  a  low  voice, 
with  his  lips  close  to  his  aunt's  ear. 

Cynthia  made  no  resistance,  but  when  the  carriage 
arrived,  and  she  was  being  driven  off,  with  Fanny  by 
her  side,  she  called  out  of  the  window  with  a  fierce  shame- 
lessness  of  anxiety,  "Robert,  you  must  come  and  tell 
me  how  he  is  this  afternoon,  or  I  shall  come  back  here 
and  see  him  myself." 

"Yes,  I  will,  Aunt  Cynthia,"  he  replied,  soothingly. 
He  met  the  doctor's  curious  eyes  when  he  turned.  The 
young  man  had  a  gossiping  mind,  but  he  forbore  to  say 
what  he  thought,  which  was  to  the  effect  that — why 
under  the  heavens,  if  that  woman  cared  as  much  as  that 
for  that  man,  she  had  not  married  him,  instead  of  letting 
him  dangle  after  her  so  many  years?  But  he  merely 
said: 

"  There  is  no  use  in  saying  anything  to  excite  a  wom 
an  further  when  she  is  in  such  a  state  of  mind,  but — " 
Then  he  paused  significantly. 

"  You  think  the  chances  of  his  keeping  his  eyesight 
are  poor?"  said  Robert. 

"Mighty  poor,"  replied  the  doctor. 

Robert  stood  still,  with  his  pale,  shocked  face  bent 
upon  the  carpet.  He  could  not  seem  to  comprehend  at 
once  the  enormity  of  it  all ;  his  mind  was  grasping  at 
and  trying  to  assimilate  the  horrible  fact  with  an  in 
finite  pain. 

"  HPVC  they  got  the  man  that  did  it?"  asked  the  doctor. 

"I  don't  know.  I  had  to  see  to  poor  Risley,"  replied 

535 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Robert.  "  I  hope  to  God  they  have."  Then  all  at  once 
he  thought,  with  keen  anxiety,  of  Ellen.  Who  knew 
what  new  tragedy  had  happened?  "I  must  go  back 
to  the  factory,"  he  said,  hurriedly.  "I  will  be  back 
here  in  an  hour  or  so,  and  see  how  he  is  getting  on. 
For  Heaven's  sake,  do  all  you  can!" 

Robert  was  desperately  impatient  to  be  back  at  the 
factory.  He  was  full  of  vague  anxiety  about  Ellen. 
He  could  not  forget  that  the  shot  which  had  hit  poor 
Risley  had  been  meant  for  her,  and  he  remembered  the 
look  on  the  man's  face  as  he  aimed.  He  found  a  car 
riage  at  the  street  corner,  and  jumped  in,  and  bade  the 
man  drive  fast. 

When  Robert  entered  the  great  building,  and  felt  the 
old  vibration  of  machinery,  he  had  a  curious  sensation, 
one  which  he  had  never  before  had  and  which  he  had 
not  expected.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  knew 
what  it  was  to  have  a  complete  triumph  of  his  own  will 
over  his  fellow-men.  He  had  gotten  his  own  way.  All 
this  army  of  workmen,  all  this  machinery  of  labor,  was 
set  in  motion  at  his  desire,  in  opposition  to  their  own. 
He  realized  himself  a  leader  and  a  conqueror.  He  went 
into  the  office,  and  Flynn  and  Dennison  came  forward, 
smiling,  to  greet  him. 

"  Well,"  said  Dennison,  "  we're  off  again."  He  spoke 
as  if  the  factory  were  a  ship  which  had  been  launched 
from  a  shoal. 

"Yes,"  replied  Robert,  gravely. 

Nellie  Stone,  at  the  desk,  was  glancing  around,  with 
a  half -shy,  half-coquettish  look. 

"How  is  Mr.  Risley?"  asked  Flynn. 

"He  is  badly  hurt,"  replied  Robert.  "Have  they 
found  the  man?  Do  you  know  what  has  been  done 
about  it?" 

"They've  got  all  the  police  force  of  the  city  out," 
replied  Flvnn,  "  but  it's  no  use.  They'll  never  catch 

536 


THE    PORTION    OF    LABOR 

Amos  Lee.  His  mother  was  a  gypsy,  I've  always 
heard.  He  knows  about  a  thousand  ways  out  of  traps, 
and  there's  plenty  to  help  him.  They've  got  Dixon 
under  arrest,  and  Tom  Peel ;  but  they  didn't  have  any 
fire-arms  on  'em,  and  they  can't  prove  anything.  Peel 
says  he's  ready  to  go  back  to  work."  Flynn  had  a 
somewhat  seedy  and  downcast  appearance,  although  he 
fought  hard  for  his  old  jaunty  manner.  His  impulsive 
good-nature  had  gotten  the  better  of  his  judgment  and 
his  own  wishes,  and  he  had  gone  to  Mamie  Brady  and 
offered  to  marry  her  out  of  hand  if  she  recovered  from 
her  attempted  suicide.  The  night  before  he  had  watched, 
turn  and  turn  about,  with  her  mother.  He  gave  a 
curious  effect  of  shamefaced  and  melancholy  virtue. 
He  followed  Robert  to  one  side  when  he  was  hanging 
up  his  hat  and  coat.  "  I'm  going  to  tell  you,  Mr.  Lloyd," 
he  said,  rather  awkwardly;  "maybe  you  won't  be  in 
terested  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  but  it  all  came  from 
the  strike.  She's  better  this  morning,  and  I'm  going 
to  marry  her,  poor  girl." 

Robert  looked  at  him  in  a  dazed  fashion.  For  a 
moment  he  had  not  the  slightest  idea  what  he  was 
talking  about. 

"  I'm  going  to  marry  Mamie  Brady,"  explained  Flynn. 
"  She  took  laudanum.  It  all  happened  on  account  of 
the  strike.  I'll  own  I'd  been  flirting  some  with  her, 
but  she'd  never  done  it  if  she  hadn't  been  out  of  work, 
too.  Sie  said  so.  Her  mother  made  her  life  a  hell. 
I'm  going  to  marry  her,  and  take  her  out  of  it." 

"It's  mighty  good  of  you,"  Robert  said,  rather 
stupidly. 

"There  ain't  no  other  way  for  me  to  do,"  replied 
Flynn.  "  She  thinks  the  world  of  me,  and  I  suppose 
I'm  to  blame." 

"  I  hope  she'll  make  you  a  good  wife  and  you'll  be 
happy,"  said  Robert. 

537 


"She  thinks  all  creation  of  me,"  replied  Flynn,  with 
the  simplest  vanity  and  acquiescence  in  the  respon 
sibility  laid  upon  him  in  the  world.  "  That  shot  wasn't 
meant  for  Mr.  Risley/'  said  Flynn,  as  Robert  approach 
ed  the  office  door.  His  eyes  flashed.  He  himself  would 
gladly  have  been  shot  for  the  sake  of  Ellen  Brewster. 
He  was  going  to  marry,  and  try  to  fulfil  his  simple  code 
of  honor,  but  all  his  life  he  would  be  married  to  one 
woman,  with  another  ideal  in  his  heart;  that  was  in 
evitable. 

"I  know  it  wasn't,"  Robert  replied,  grimly. 

"  Everything  is  quiet  now,"  said  Dennison,  with  his 
smooth  smile.  Robert  made  no  reply,  but  entered 
the  great  work-room.  "  He's  mighty  stand-offish,  now 
he's  got  his  own  way,"  Dennison  remarked  in  a  whisper 
to  Nellie  Stone.  He  leaned  closely  over  her.  Flynn 
had  followed  Robert.  The  girl  glanced  up  at  the  fore 
man,  who  was  unmarried,  although  years  older  than 
she,  and  her  face  quivered  a  little,  but  it  seemed  due  to 
a  surface  sensitiveness. 

"  I  want  to  know  if  you've  heard  that  Ed  is  going  to 
marry  Mamie  Brady,  after  all,"  she  whispered. 

Dennison  nodded. 

She  knitted  her  forehead  over  a  column  of  figures. 
Dennison  leaned  his  face  so  close  that  his  blond-bearded 
cheek  touched  hers.  She  made  a  little  impatient  motion. 

"  Oh,  go  long,  Jim  Dennison,"  she  said,  but  her  tone 
was  half-hearted. 

Dennison  persisted,  bending  her  head  gently  back 
ward  until  he  kissed  her.  She  pushed  him  away,  but 
she  smiled  weakly. 

"You  didn't  want  Ed  Flynn.  Why,  he's  a  Roman 
Catholic,  and  you're  Baptist,  Nell,"  he  said. 

"Who  said  I  did?"  she  retorted,  angrily.  "Why, 
I  wouldn't  marry  Ed  Flynn  if  he  was  the  last  man  in 
the  world." 

538 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

"You'd  'nough  sight  better  marry  me,"  said  Denni- 
son. 

"Go  along;  you're  fooling." 

"No,  I  ain't.     I  mean  it,  honest." 

"  I  don't  want  to  marry  anybody  yet  awhile,"  said 
Nellie  Stone;  but  when  Dennison  kissed  her  again 
she  did  not  repulse  him,  and  even  nestled  her  head 
with  a  little  caressing  motion  into  the  hollow  of  his 
shoulder. 

Then  they  both  started  violently  apart  as  Flynn  en 
tered. 

"Say!"  he  proclaimed,  "what  do  you  think?  The 
boss  has  just  told  the  hands  that  he'll  split  the  differ 
ence  and  reduce  the  wages  five  instead  of  ten  per 
cent." 

539 


CHAPTER  LIX 

WHEN  Robert  Lloyd  entered  the  factory  that  morning 
he  experienced  one  of  those  revulsions  which  come  to 
man  in  common  with  all  creation.  As  the  wind  can 
swerve  from  south  to  east,  and  its  swerving  be  a  part  of 
the  universal  scheme  of  things,  so  the  inconsistency 
of  a  human  soul  can  be  an  integral  part  of  its  consist 
ency.  Robert,  entering  Lloyd's,  flushed  with  triumph 
over  his  workmen,  filled  also  with  rage  whenever  he 
thought  of  poor  Risley,  became  suddenly,  to  all  ap 
pearances,  another  man.  However,  he  was  the  same 
man,  only  he  had  come  under  some  hidden  law  of  growth. 
All  at  once,  as  he  stood  there  amidst  those  whirring  and 
clamping  machines,  and  surveyed  those  bowed  and 
patient  backs  and  swaying  arms  of  labor,  standing 
aside  to  allow  a  man  bending  before  a  heavy  rack  of 
boots  to  push  it  to  another  department,  he  realized  that 
his  triumph  was  gone. 

Not  a  man  or  woman  in  the  factory  looked  at  him. 
All  continued  working  with  a  sort  of  patient  fierceness, 
as  if  storming  a  citadel — as,  indeed,  they  were  in  one 
sense — and  waging  incessant  and  in  the  end  hopeless 
warfare  against  the  destructive  forces  of  life.  Robert 
stood  in  the  midst  of  them,  these  fellow-beings  who 
had  bowed  to  his  will,  and  saw,  as  if  by  some  divine  rev 
elation,  in  his  foes  his  brothers  and  sisters.  He  saw 
Ellen's  fair  head  before  her  machine,  and  she  seemed 
the  key-note  of  a  heart-breaking  yet  ineffable  harmony 
of  creation  which  he  heard  for  the  first  time.  He  \vas  a 
man  whom  triumph  did  not  exalt  as  much  as  it  humil- 

540 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

iated.  Who  was  he  to  make  these  men  and  women 
do  his  bidding?  They  were  working  as  hard  as  they 
had  worked  for  full  pay.  Without  doubt  he  would  not 
gain  as  much  comparatively,  but  he  was  going  to  lose 
nothing  actually,  and  he  would  not  work  as  these  men 
worked.  He  saw  himself  as  he  never  could  have  seen 
himself  had  the  strike  continued;  and  yet,  after  all, 
he  was  not  a  woman,  to  be  carried  away  by  a  sudden 
wave  of  generous  sentiment  and  enthusiasm,  for  his 
business  instincts  were  too  strong,  inherited  and  de 
veloped  by  the  force  of  example.  He  could  not  for 
get  that  this  had  been  his  uncle's  factory. 

He  shut  his  mouth  hard,  and  stood  looking  at  the 
scene  of  toil,  then  he  resolved  what  to  do. 

He  spoke  to  Flynn,  who  could  not  believe  his  ears, 
and  asked  him  over. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  he  said. 

"  Go  and  speak  to  the  engineer,  and  tell  him  to  shut 
down,"  said  Robert. 

"  You  ain't  going  to  turn  them  out,  after  all?"  gasped 
Flynn.  He  was  deadly  white. 

"No,  I  am  not.  I  only  want  to  speak  to  them,"  re 
plied  Robert,  shortly. 

When  the  roar  of  machinery  had  ceased,  Robert 
stood  before  the  employes,  whose  faces  had  taken  on 
an  expression  of  murder  and  menace.  They  antici 
pated  the  worst  by  this  order. 

"I  want  to  say  to  you  all,"  said  Robert,  in  a  loud, 
clear  voice,  "that  I  realize  it  will  be  hard  for  you  to 
make  both  ends  meet  with  the  cut  of  ten  per  cent.  I 
will  make  it  five  instead  of  ten  per  cent.,  although  I  shall 
actually  lose  by  so  doing  unless  business  improves.  I 
will,  however,  try  it  as  long  as  possible.  If  the  hard 
times  continue,  and  it  becomes  a  sheer  impossibility  for 
me  to  employ  you  on  these  terms  without  abandoning 
the  plant  altogether,  I  will  approach  you  again,  and 

541 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

trust  that  you  will  support  me  in  any  measures  I  am 
forced  to  take.  And,  on  the  contrary,  should  business 
improve,  I  promise  that  your  wages  shall  be  raised  to 
the  former  standard  at  once." 

The  speech  was  so  straightforward  that  it  sounded 
almost  boyish.  Robert,  indeed,  looked  very  young 
as  he  stood  there,  for  a  generous  and  pitying  impulse 
does  tend  to  make  a  child  of  a  man.  The  workmen 
stared  at  him  a  minute,  then  there  was  a  queer  little 
broken  chorus  of  "  Thank  ye's,"  with  two  or  three  shrill 
crows  of  cheers. 

Robert  went  from  room  to  room,  repeating  his  short 
speech,  then  work  recommenced. 

"He's  the  right  sort,  after  all/'  said  Granville  Joy 
to  John  Sargent,  and  his  tone  had  a  quality  of  heroism 
in  it.  He  was  very  thin  and  pale.  He  had  suffered 
privations,  and  now  came  additional  worry  of  mind. 
He  could  not  help  thinking  that  this  might  bring  about 
an  understanding  between  Robert  and  Ellen,  and  yet 
he  paid  his  spiritual  dues  at  any  cost. 

"  It's  no  more  than  he  ought  to  do/'  growled  a  man  at 
Granville's  right.  "  S'pose  he  does  lose  a  little  money?" 

"It  ain't  many  out  of  the  New  Testament  that  are 
going  to  lose  a  little  for  the  sake  of  their  fellow-men, 
I  can  tell  you  that,"  said  John  Sargent.  He  was  cut 
ting  away  deftly  and  swiftly,  and  thinking  with  satis 
faction  of  the  money  which  he  would  be  able  to  send  his 
sister,  and  also  how  the  Atkins  family  would  be  no 
longer  so  pinched.  He  was  a  man  who  would  never 
come  under  the  grindstone  of  the  pessimism  of  life  for 
his  own  necessities,  but  lately  the  necessities  of  others 
had  almost  forced  him  there.  Now  and  then  he  glanced 
across  the  room  at  Maria,  whose  narrow  shoulders  he 
could  see  bent  painfully  over  her  work.  He  was  in  love 
with  Maria,  but  no  one  suspected  it,  least  of  all  Maria 
herself. 

542 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"Lord!  don't  talk  about  the  New  Testament.  Them 
lays  is  past/'  growled  the  man  on  the  other  side  of  Joy. 

"  They  ain't  past  for  me/'  said  John  Sargent,  stoutly. 
I A  dark  flush  rose  to  his  cheek  as  if  he  were  making  a 
I  confession  of  love. 

"Lord!  don't  preach/'  said  the  other  man,  with  a 
sneer. 

Ellen  had  stopped  work  with  the  rest  when  Robert 
addressed  them.  Then  she  recommenced  her  stitching 
without  a  word.  Her  thoughts  were  in  confusion.  She 
had  so  long  held  one  attitude  towards  him  that  she  could 
not  readily  adjust  herself  to  another.  She  was  cramped 
with  the  extreme  narrowness  of  the  enthusiasm  of  youth. 
At  noontime  she  heard  all  the  talk  which  went  on  about 
him.  She  heard  some  praise  him,  and  some  speak  of 
him  as  simply  doing  his  manifest  duty,  and  some  say 
openly  that  he  should  have  put  the  wages  back  upon  the 
former  footing,  and  she  did  not  know  which  was  right. 
He  did  not  come  near  her,  and  she  was  very  glad  of 
that.  She  felt  that  she  could  not  bear  it  to  have  him 
speak  to  her  before  them  all. 

When  she  went  home  at  night  the  news  had  preceded 
her.  Fanny  and  Andrew  looked  up  eagerly  when  she 
entered.  "I  hear  he  has  compromised,"  said  Andrew, 
with  doubtful  eyes  on  the  girl's  face. 

"  Yes ;  he  has  cut  the  wages  five  instead  of  ten  per 
cent./'  replied  Ellen,  and  it  was  impossible  to  judge  of 
her  feelings  by  her  voice.  She  took  off  her  hat  and 
smoothed  her  hair. 

"  Well,  I  am  glad  he  has  done  that  much,"  said  Fanny, 
"but  I  won't  say  a  wrord  as  long  as  you  ain't  hurt." 

With  that  she  went  into  the  kitchen,  and  Ellen  and 
Andrew  heard  the  dishes  rattle.  "Your  mother's  been 
dreadful  nervous,"  whispered  Andrew.  He  looked  at 
Ellen  meaningly.  Both  of  them  thought  of  poor  Eva 
Tenny.  Lately  the  reports  with  regard  to  her  had 

543 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

been  more  encouraging,  but  she  was  still  in  the  asy 
lum. 

Suddenly,  as  they  stood  there,  a  swift  shadow  passed 
the  window,  and  they  heard  a  shrill  scream  from  up 
stairs.  It  sounded  like  "  Mamma,  mamma!"  "  It's  Am 
abel!"  cried  Ellen.  She  clutched  her  father  by  the  arm. 
"  Oh,  what  is  it — who  is  it?"  she  whispered,  fearfully. 

Andrew  was  suddenly  white  and  horror-stricken. 
He  took  hold  of  Ellen,  and  pushed  her  forcibly  before 
him  into  the  parlor.  "  You  stay  in  there  till  I  call  you," 
he  said,  in  a  commanding  voice,  the  like  of  which  the 
girl  had  never  heard  from  him  before ;  then  he  shut  the 
door,  and  she  heard  the  key  turn  in  the  lock. 

"Father,  I  can't  stay  in  here,"  cried  Ellen.  She  ran 
towards  the  other  door  into  the  front  hall,  but  before  she 
could  reach  it  she  heard  the  key  turn  in  that  also.  An 
drew  was  convinced  that  Eva  had  escaped  from  the 
asylum,  and  thus  made  sure  of  Ellen's  safety  in  case 
she  was  violent.  Then  he  rushed  out  into  the  kitchen, 
and  there  was  Amabel  clinging  to  her  mother  like  a  little 
wild  thing,  and  Fanny  weeping  aloud. 

When  Andrew  entered  Fanny  flew  to  him.  "0 
Andrew — 0  Andrew!"  she  cried.  "Eva's  come  out! 
She's  well!  she's  cured!  She's  as  well  as  anybody! 
She  is!  She  says  so,  and  I  know  she  is!  Only  look 
at  her!" 

" Mamma,  mamma!"  gasped  Amabel,  in  a  strange,  lit 
tle,  pent  voice,  which  did  not  sound  like  a  child's.  There 
was  something  fairly  inhuman  about  it.  "Mamma," 
as  she  said  it,  did  not  sound  like  a  word  in  any  known 
language.  It  was  like  a  cry  of  universal  childhood  for 
its  parent.  Amabel  clung  to  her  mother,  not  only  with 
her  slender  little  arms,  but  with  her  legs  and  breast  and 
neck ;  all  her  slim  body  became  as  a  vine  with  tendrils 
of  love  and  growth  around  her  mother. 

As  for  Eva,  she  could  not  have  enough  of  her.  She 

544 


THE    PORTION     OF    LABOR 

was  intoxicated  with  the  possession  of  this  little  creature 
of  her  own  flesh  and  blood. 

"She's  grown;  she's  grown  so  tail,"  she  said,  in  a 
high,  panting  voice.  It  was  all  she  could  seem  to  realize 
— the  fact  that  the  child  had  grown  so  tall — and  it 
filled  her  at  once  with  ineffable  pain  and  delight.  She 
held  the  little  thing  so  close  to  her  that  the  two  seemed 
fairly  one.  "Mamma,  mamma!"  said  Amabel  again. 

"She  has — grown  so  tall,"  panted  Eva. 

Fanny  went  up  to  her  and  tried  gently  to  loosen  her 
grasp  of  the  little  girl.  In  her  heart  she  was  not  yet 
quite  sure  of  her.  This  fierceness  of  delight  began  to 
alarm  her.  "  Of  course  she  has  grown  tall,  Eva  Ten- 
ny,"  she  said.  "It's  quite  a  while  since  you  were — 
taken  sick." 

"  I  ain't  sick  now,"  said  Eva,  in  a  steady  voice.  ''  I'm 
cured  now.  The  doctors  say  so.  You  needn't  be  afraid, 
Fanny  Brewster." 

"Mamma,  mamma!"  said  Amabel.  Eva  bent  down 
and  kissed  the  little,  delicate  face ;  then  she  looked  at 
her  sister  and  at  Andrew,  and  her  own  countenance 
seemed  fairly  illuminated.  "I  'ain't  told  you  all," 
said  she.  Then  she  stopped  and  hesitated. 

"  What  is  it,  Eva?"  asked  Fanny,  looking  at  her  with 
increasing  courage.  The  tears  were  streaming  openly 
down  her  cheeks.  "  Oh,  you  poor  girl,  what  have  you 
been  through?"  she  said.  "What  is  it?" 

"I 'ain't  got  to  go  through  anything  more,"  said 
Eva,  still  with  that  rapt  look  over  Amabel's  little,  fair 
head.  "He's — come  back." 

"Eva  Tenny!" 

"Yes,  he  has,"  Eva  went  on,  with  such  an  air  of 
inexpressible  triumph  that  it  had  almost  a  religious 
quality  in  it.  "  He  has.  He  left  her  a  long  time  ago. 
He — he  wanted  to  come  back  to  me  and  Amabel,  but 
he  was  ashamed,  but  finally  he  came  to  the  asylum, 
2  M  545 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  then  it  all  rolled  off,  all  the  trouble.  The  doctors 
said  I  had  been  getting  better,  but  they  didn't  know. 
It  was — Jim's  comin'  back.  He's  took  me  home,  and 
I've  come  for  Amabel,  and — he's  got  a  job  in  Lloyd's, 
and  he's  bought  me  this  new  hat  and  cape."  Eva 
flirted  her  free  arm,  and  a  sweep  of  jetted  silk  gleamed, 
then  she  tossed  her  head  consciously  to  display  a  hat 
with  a  knot  of  pink  roses.  Then  she  kissed  Amabel 
again.  "Mamma's  come  back,"  she  whispered. 

"Mamma,  mamma!"  cried  Amabel. 

Andrew  and  Fanny  looked  at  each  other. 

"Where  is  he?"  asked  Andrew,  in  a  slow,  halting 
voice. 

Eva  glanced  from  one  to  the  other  defiantly.  "  He's 
outside,  waitin'  in  the  road,"  said  she;  "but  he  ain't 
comin'  in  unless  you  treat  him  just  the  same  as  ever. 
I've  set  my  veto  on  that."  Eva's  voice  and  manner 
as  she  said  that  were  so  unmistakably  her  own  that  all 
Fanny's  doubt  of  her  sanity  vanished.  She  sobbed 
aloud. 

"0  God,  I'm  so  thankful!  She's  come  home,  and 
she's  all  right!  0  God,  I'm  so  thankful!" 

"What  about  Jim?"  asked  Eva,  with  her  old,  proud, 
defiant  look. 

"Of  course  he's  comin'  in,"  sobbed  Fanny.  "An 
drew*,  you  go — " 

But  Andrew  had  already  gone,  unlocking  the  parlor 
door  on  his  way.  "  It's  your  aunt  Eva,  Ellen,"  he  said 
as  he  passed.  "She's  come  home  cured,  and  your 
uncle  Jim  is  out  in  the  yard,  and  I'm  goin'  to  call  him 
in.  I  guess  you'd  better  go  out  and  see  her." 


CHAPTER  LX 

LLOYD'S  had  been  running  for  two  months,  and 
spring  had  fairly  begun.  It  was  a  very  forward  season. 
The  elms  were  leafed  out,  the  chern7  and  peach  blossoms 
had  fallen,  and  the  apple-trees  were  in  full  flower.  There 
were  many  orchards  around  Rowe.  The  little  city 
was  surrounded  with  bowing  garlands  of  tenderest 
\vhite  and  rose,  the  well-kept  lawns  in  the  city  limits 
were  like  velvet,  and  golden-spiked  bushes  and  pink 
trails  of  flowering  almond  were  beside  the  gates.  Lilacs 
also,  flushed  with  rose,  purpled  the  walls  of  old  houses. 
One  morning  Ellen,  on  her  way  to  the  factory,  had  for 
the  first  time  that  year  a  realization  of  the  full  presence 
of  the  spring.  All  at  once  she  knew  the  goddess  to  be 
there  in  her  whole  glory. 

"Spring  has  really  come/'  she  said  to  Abby.  As 
she  spoke  she  jostled  a  great  bush  of  white  flowers, 
growing  in  a  yard  close  to  the  sidewalk,  and  an  over 
powering  fragrance,  like  a  very  retaliation  of  sweet 
ness,  came  in  her  face. 

"Yes,"  said  Abby;  "it  seems  more  like  spring  than 
it  did  last  night,  somehow!"  Abby  had  gained  flesh, 
and  there  was  a  soft  color  on  her  cheeks,  so  that  she  was 
almost  pretty,  as  she  glanced  abroad  with  a  sort  of  bright 
gladness  and  a  face  ready  with  smiles.  Maria  also 
looked  in  better  health  than  she  had  done  in  the  winter. 
She  walked  with  her  arm  through  Ellen's. 

Suddenly  a  carriage,  driven  rapidly,  passed  them, 
and  Cynthia  Lennox's  graceful  profile  showed  like  a 
drooping  white  flower  in  a  window. 

547 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Sadie  Peel  came  up  to  them  with  a  swift  run.  "  Say !" 
she  said,  "know  who  that  was?" 

"  We've  got  eyes,"  replied  Abby  Atkins,  shortly. 

"Who  said  you  hadn't?  You  needn't  be  so  up  an' 
comin',  Abby  Atkins;  I  didn't  know  as  you  knew  they 
were  married,  that's  all.  I  just  heard  it  from  Lottie 
Snell,  whose  sister  works  at  the  dressmaker's  that  made 
the  wedding  fix.  Weddin'  fix!  My  land!  Think  of 
a  weddin'  without  a  white  dress  and  a  veil!  All  she  had 
was  a  gray  silk  and  a  black  velvet,  and  a  black  lace, 
and  a  travellin '-dress!" 

Abby  Atkins  eyed  the  other  girl  sharply,  her  curiosity 
getting  the  better  of  her  dislike.  "  Who  did  she  marry?" 
said  she,  shortly.  "  I  suppose  she  didn't  marry  the  black 
velvet,  or  the  lace,  or  the  travelling-dress.  That's  all 
you  seem  to  think  about." 

"I  thought  you  didn't  know,"  replied  Sadie  Peel,  in  a 
tone  of  triumph.  "They've  kept  it  mighty  still,  and 
he's  been  goin'  there  so  long,  ever  since  anybody  can 
remember,  that  they  didn't  think  it  was  am'thing  more 
now  than  it  had  been  right  along.  Lyman  Risley  and 
Cynthia  Lennox  have  just  got  married,  and  they've 
^one  down  to  Old  Point  Comfort.  My  land,  it's  nice 
to. have  money,  if  you  be  half  blind!" 

Ellen  looked  after  the  retreating  carriage,  and  made 
no  comment. 

She  was  pale  and  thin,  and  moved  with  a  certain 
languor,  although  she  held  up  her  head  proudly,  and 
when  people  asked  if  she  were  not  well,  answered  quickly 
that  she  had  never  been  better.  Robert  had  not  been 
to  see  her  yet.  She  had  furtively  watched  for  him  a 
long  time,  then  she  had  given  it  up.  She  would  not 
acknowledge  to  herself  or  arry  one  else  that  she  was  not 
;vell  or  wras  troubled  in  spirit.  Her  courage  was  quite 
?qual  to  the  demand  upon  it,  yet  always  she  was 
aware  of  a  peculiar  sensitiveness  to  all  happenings, 

548 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

whether  directly  concerned  with  herself  or  not,  which 
made  life  an  agony  to  her,  and  she  knew  that  her  phys 
ical  strength  was  not  what  it  had  been.  Only  that 
morning  she  had  looked  at  her  face  in  the  glass,  and 
lad  seen  howr  it  was  altered.  The  lovely  color  was  gone 
:rom  her  cheeks,  there  were  little,  faint,  downward  lines 
about  her  mouth,  and,  more  than  that,  out  of  her  blue 
eyes  looked  the  eternal,  unanswerable  question  of  hu 
manity,  "Where  is  my  happiness?" 

It  seemed  to  her  when  she  first  set  out  that  she  could 
not  walk  to  the  factory.  That  sense  of  the  full  presence 
of  the  spring  seemed  to  overpower  her.  All  the  revela 
tion  of  beauty  and  sweetness  seemed  a  refinement  of 
torture  worse  to  bear  than  the  sight  of  death  and  misery 
would  have  been.  Every  blooming  apple-bough  seem 
ed  to  strike  her  full  on  the  heart. 

"  Only  look  at  that  bush  of  red  flowers  in  that  yard," 
Maria  said  once,  and  Ellen  looked  and  was  stung 
by  the  sight  as  by  the  contact  of  a  red  flaming  torch  of 
spring.  "What  ails  3^ou,  dear;  don't  you  like  those 
flowers?''  Maria  said,  anxiously. 

"  Yes,  of  course  I  do;  I  think  they  are  lovely,"  replied 
Ellen,  looking. 

She  looked  after  the  carriage  which  contained  the 
bridal  party ;  she  thought  how  the  bridegroom  -had  al 
most  lost  his  eyesight  to  save  her,  and  her  old  adoration 
of  Cynthia  seemed  to  rise  to  a  flood-tide.  Then  came  the 
thought  of  Robert,  how  he  must  have  ceased  to  love  her — 
how  some  day  he  would  be  starting  off  on  a  bridal  trip 
of  his  own.  Maud  Hemingway,  with  whom  she  had 
often  coupled  him  in  her  thoughts,  seemed  to  start  up 
before  her,  all  dressed  in  bridal  white.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  she  could  not  bear  it  all.  She  continued  walking, 
but  she  did  not  feel  the  ground  beneath  her  feet,  nor  even 
Maria's  little,  clinging  fingers  of  tenderness  on  her  arm. 
She  became  to  her  own  understanding  like  an  instru- 

549 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

it  which  is  played  upon  with  such  results  of  harrno- 
>  and  discords  that  all  sense  of  the  mechanism  is 

Well,  Ellen  Brewster,"  said  Sadie  Peel,  in  her  loud, 
dent  voice,  "  I  guess  you  wouldn't  have  been  walkin' 
ig  here  quite  so  fine  this  mornin'  if  it  hadn't  been 
Mr.  Risley.  You'd  ought  to  send  him  a  weddin'- 
?ent — a  spoon,  or  something." 

Shut  up,"  said  Abby  Atkins;  "Ellen  has  worried 
self  sick  over  him  as  it  is. "  She  eyed  Ellen  anxious- 
is  she  spoke.  Maria  clung  more  closely  to  her. 
Shut  up  yourself,  Abby  Atkins,"  returned  Sadie 
1.  "  He's  got  a  wife  to  lead  him  around,  and 
on't  see  much  to  worry  about.  A  great  weddin'I 
goodness,  if  I  don't  get  married  when  I'm  young 
ugh  to  wear  a  white  dress  and  veil,  catch  me  gettin' 
rried  at  all!" 

•adie  Peel  sped  on  with  her  news  to  a  group  of  girls 
:ad,  and  the  wheels  of  the  carriage  flashed  out  of 
lit  in  the  spring  sunlight.  It  was  quite  true  that 
ley  and  Cynthia  had  been  married  that  morning. 
had  not  entirely  lost  his  vision,  although  it  would 
•ays  be  poor,  and  he  would  live  happily,  although 
a  measure  disappointedly,  feeling  that  his  partial 
plessness  was  his  chief  claim  upon  his  wife's  affec- 
i.  He  had  gotten  what  he  had  longed  for  for  so  many 
.rs,  but  by  means  which  tended  to  his  humiliation 
Lead  of  his  pride.  But  Cynthia  was  radiant.  In 
ing  for  her  half-blind  husband  she  attained  the  spir 
al  mountain  height  of  her  life.  She  possessed  love 
the  one  guise  in  which  he  appealed  to  her.  and  she 
d  him  fast  to  the  illumination  of  her  very  s<.»ul. 
^fter  the  carriage  had  passed  out  of  sight  Abby  came 
se  on  the  other  side  of  Ellen  and  slid  her  arm  through 
•s.  "Say!"  she  began. 
'What  is  it?"  asked  Ellen. 
550 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

Abby  blushed.  "Oh,  nothing  much/'  she  replied 
in  a  tone  unusual  for  her.  She  took  her  arm  awa; 
from  Ellen's,  and  laughed  a  little  foolishly. 

Ellen  stared  at  her  with  grave  wonder.  She  had  no 
the  least  idea  what  she  meant. 

Abby  changed  the  subject.  "Going  to  the  par! 
opening  to-night,  Ellen?"  she  asked. 

"No,  I  guess  not." 

"You'd  better.     Do  go,  Ellen." 

"Yes,  do  go,  Ellen;  it  will  do  you  good,"  said  Maria 
She  looked  into  Ellen's  face  with  the  inexpressibly  pur 
love  of  one  innocent  girl  for  another. 

The  park  was  a  large  grove  of  oaks  and  birch-tree 
which  had  recentl}7  been  purchased  by  the  street  railwa; 
company  of  Rowe,  and  it  was  to  be  used  for  the  free  en 
tertainment  of  the  people,  with  an  undercurrent  of  con 
sideration  for  the  financial  profit  of  the  compairy. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  can't  go,"  said  Ellen. 

"  Yes,  you  can ;  it  will  do  you  good ;  you  look  like  ; 
ghost  this  morning,"  said  Abby. 

"Do  go,  Ellen,"  pleaded  Maria. 

However,  Ellen  would  not  have  gone  had  it  not  beei 
for  a  whisper  of  Abby's  as  they  came  out  of  the  factor 
that  night. 

"Look  here,  Ellen,  you'd  better  go,"  said  she,  "jus 
to  show  folks.  That  Sadie  Peel  asked  me  this  nooi 
if  it  was  true  that  you  had  something  on  your  mind,  am 
was  worrying  about — well,  you  know  what — that  mad 
you  look  so." 

Ellen  flushed  an  angry  red.  "I'll  stop  for  you  an 
Maria  to-night,"  she  answered,  quickly. 

"  All  right,"  Abb}'  replied,  heartily;  "we'll  go  on  th 
eight-o'clock  car." 

Ellen  hurried  home,  and  changed  her  dress  after  suj: 
per,  putting  on  her  ne\v  green  silk  waist  and  her  sprinj 
hat,  which  was  trimmed  with  roses.  When  she  wen 

551 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

down-stairs,  and  told  her  mother  where  she  was  going, 
she  started  up. 

"  I  declare,  I'd  go  too  if  your  father  had  come  home," 
she  said.  "I  don't  know  when  I've  been  anywhere; 
and  Eva  was  in  this  afternoon  and  said  that  she  and 
Jim  were  going." 

"I  wonder  where  father  is?"  said  Ellen,  uneasily. 
"I  don't  know  as  I  ought  to  go  till  he  comes  home." 

"Oh,  stuff!"  replied  Fanny.  "lie's  stopped  to  talk 
at  the  store.  Oh,  here  he  is  now.  Andrew  Bre\vster, 
where  in  the  world  have  you  been?"  she  began  as  he 
entered ;  but  his  mother  was  following  him,  and  some 
thing  in  their  faces  stopped  her.  Fanny  Brewster  had 
lived  for  years  with  this  man,  but  never  before  had 
she  seen  his  face  with  just  that  expression  of  utter, 
unreserved  joy;  although  joy  was  scarcely  the  word 
for  it,  for  it  was  more  than  that.  It  was  the  look  of  a 
man  who  has  advanced  to  his  true  measure  of  growth, 
and  regained  self-respect  which  he  had  lost.  All  the 
abject  bend  of  his  aging  back,  all  the  apologetic  pa 
tience  of  his  outlook,  was  gone.  She  stared  at  him, 
hardly  believing  her  eyes.  She  was  as  frightened  as 
if  he  had  looked  despairing  instead  of  joyful.  "An 
drew  Brew^ster,  what  is  it?"  she  asked.  She  tried 
to  smile,  to  echo  the  foolish  width  of  grimace  on  his 
face,  but  her  lips  wrere  too  stiff. 

Ellen  looked  at  him,  trembling,  and  very  white  under 
her  knot  of  roses.  Andrew  held  out  a  paper  and  tried 
to  speak,  but  he  could  not. 

"For  God's  sake,  what  is  it?"  gasped  Fanny. 

Then  Mrs.  Zelotes  spoke.  "  That  old  mining-stock 
has  come  up,"  said  she,  in  a  harsh  voice.  "  He'd  never 
ought  to  have  bought  it.  I  should  have  told  him  better 
if  he  had  asked  me,  but  it's  come  up,  and  it's  worth 
considerable  more  than  he  paid  for  it.  I've  just  been 
down  to  Mrs.  Pointdexter's,  and  Lawyer  Samson  was 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

in  there  seeing  her  about  a  bond  she's  got  that's  run 
out,  and  he  says  the  mine's  going  to  pay.  dividends,  and 
for  Andrew  to  hold  on  to  part  of  it,  anyhow.  I  bought 
this  paper,  and  it's  in  it.  He  never  ought  to  have  bought 
it,  but  it's  come  up.  I  hope  it  will  learn  him  a  lesson. 
He's  had  enough  trouble  over  it." 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  mixture  of  recrimination 
and  exultation  with  which  the  old  woman  spoke.  She 
eyed  Fanny  accusingly;  she  looked  at  Andrew  with 
grudging  triumph.  "  Lawyer  Samson  says  it  will 
make  him  rich,  he  guesses ;  at  any  rate,  he'll  come  out 
whole, "  said  she.  "I  hope  it  will  learn  you  a  lesson." 

Andrew  dropped  into  a  chair.  His  face  was  distended 
with  a  foolish  smile  like  a  baby's.  He  seemed  to  smile 
at  all  creation.  He  looked  at  his  wife  and  Ellen;  then 
his  face  again  took  on  its  expression  of  joyful  vacuity. 

Fanny  went  close  to  him  and  laid  a  firm  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  "You  'ain't  had  a  mite  of  supper,  An 
drew  Brewster,"  said  she;  "come  right  out  and  have 
something  to  eat." 

Andrew  shook  his  head,  still  smiling.  His  wife  and 
daughter  looked  at  him  alarmedly,  then  at  each  other. 
Then  his  mother  went  behind  him,  laid  a  hard,  old  hand 
on  each  shoulder,  and  shook  him. 

"  If  you  have  got  a  streak  of  luck,  there's  no  need 
of  your  actin'  like  a  fool  about  it,  Andrew  Brewster," 
said  she.  "Go  out  and  eat  your  supper,  and  behave 
yourself,  and  let  it  be  a  lesson  to  you.  There  you  had 
worked  and  saved  that  little  money  you  had  in  the  bank, 
and  you  bought  an  old  mine  with  it,  and  it  might  have 
turned  out  there  wasn't  a  thing  in  it,  no  mine  at  all,  and 
there  was.  Just  let  it  be  a  lesson  to  you,  that's  all ; 
and  go  out  and  eat  your  supper,  and  don't  be  too  set  up 
over  it." 

Andrew  looked  at  his  wife  and  mother  and  daughter, 
still  \vith  that  expression  of  joy,  so  unreserved  that  it 

553 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

was  almost  idiotic.  They  had  all  stood  by  him  loyally; 
he  had  their  fullest  sympathy ;  but  had  one  of  them 
fully  understood?  Not  one  of  them  could  certainly  un 
derstand  what  was  then  passing  in  his  mind,  which 
had  been  straitened  by  grief  and  self-reproach,  and  was 
now  expanding  to  hold  its  full  measure  of  joy.  That 
poor  little  sum  in  the  bank,  that  accumulation  of  his 
hard  earnings,  which  he  had  lost  through  his  own  bad 
judgment,  had  meant  much  more  than  itself  to  him, 
both  in  its  loss  and  its  recovery.  It  was  more  than 
money;  it  was  the  value  of  money  in  the  current  coin 
of  his  own  self-respect. 

His  mother  shook  him  again ,  but  rather  gently.  "  Get 
up  this  minute,  and  go  out  and  eat  your  supper,"  said 
she ;  "  and  then  I  don't  see  why  you  can't  go  with  Fanny 
and  me  to  the  park  opening.  They  say  lots  of  folks 
are  goin',  and  there's  goin'  to  be  fireworks.  It'll  dis 
tract  your  mind.  It  ain't  safe  for  anybody  to  dwell 
too  much  on  good  luck  any  more  than  on  misfortune. 
Go  right  out  and  eat  your  supper;  it's  most  time  for 
the  car." 

Andrew  obeyed. 


CHAPTER  LXI 

THE  new  park,  which  had  been  named,  in  honor  of 
the  president  of  the  street  railway  company,  Clemens 
Park,  was  composed  of  a  light  growth  of  oak  and  birch 
trees.  With  the  light  of  the  full  moon,  like  a  broadside 
of  silvery  arrows,  and  the  frequent  electric-lights  fil 
tering  through  the  young,  delicate  foliage,  it  was  much 
more  effective  than  a  grove  of  pine  or  hemlock  would 
have  been. 

When  the  people  streamed  into  it  from  the  crowded 
electric-cars,  there  were  exclamations  of  rapture.  Wom 
en  and  girls  fairly  shrieked  with  delight.  The  ground, 
which  had  been  entirely  cleared  of  undergrowth,  was 
like  an  etching  in  clearest  black  and  white,  of  the  tender 
dancing  foliage  of  the  oaks  and  birches.  The  birches 
stood  together  in  leaning,  white-limbed  groups  like 
maidens,  and  the  rustling  spread  of  the  oaks  shed  broad 
flashes  of  silver  from  the  moon.  In  the  midst  of  the 
grove  the  Hungarian  orchestra  played  in  a  pavilion, 
and  dancing  was  going  on  there.  Man}7  of  the  people 
outside  moved  with  dancing  steps.  Children  in  swings 
flew  through  the  airs  with  squeals  of  delight.  There 
was  a  stand  for  the  sale  of  ice-cream  and  soda,  and 
pretty  girls  blossomed  like  flowers  behind  the  counters. 
There  were  various  rustic  adornments,  such  as  seats 
and  grottos,  and  at  one  end  of  the  grove  was  a  small 
collection  of  wild  animals  in  cages,  and  a  little  artificial 
pond  with  swans.  Now  and  then,  above  the  chatter 
of  the  people  and  the  music  of  the  orchestra,  sounded 
the  growl  of  a  bear  or  the  shrill  screech  of  a  paroquet, 

555 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

and  the  people  all  stopped  and  listened  and  laughed. 
This  little  titillation  of  the  unusual  in  the  midst  of  their 
sober  walk  of  life  affected  them  like  champagne.  Most 
of  them  were  of  the  poorer  and  middle  classes,  the  em 
ployes  of  the  factories  of  Rowe.  The}"  moved  back  and 
forth  with  dancing  steps  of  exultation. 

"My,  ain't  it  beautiful!"  Fanny  said,  squeezing 
Andrew's  arm.  He  had  his  wife  on  one  arm,  his  mother 
on  the  other.  For  him  the  whole  scene  appeared  more 
than  it  really  was,  since  it  reflected  the  joy  of  his  own 
soul.  There  was  for  him  a  light  greater  than  that  of 
the  moon  or  electricit}'  upon  it  —  that  extreme  light 
of  the  world  —  the  happiness  of  a  human  being  who 
blesses  in  a  moment  of  prosperity  the  hour  he  was 
born.  He  knew  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  hap 
piness  is  as  true  as  misery,  and  110  mere  creation  of  a 
fairy  tale.  No  trees  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  could  have 
outshone  for  him  those  oaks  and  birches.  No  gold  or 
precious  stones  of  any  mines  on  earth  can  equal  the 
light  of  the  little  star  of  happiness  in  one  human  soul. 

Fanny,  as  they  walked  along,  kept  looking  at  her 
husband,  and  her  own  face  was  transfigured.  Mrs. 
Zelotes,  also,  seemed  to  radiate  with  a  sort  of  harsh 
and  prickly  delight.  She  descanted  upon  the  hard- 
earned  savings  which  Andrew  had  risked,  but  she  held 
her  old  head  very  high  with  reluctant  joy,  and  her  bon 
net  had  a  rakish  cant. 

Ellen,  with  Abbj'  and  Maria,  walked  behind  them. 

Presently  Andrew  met  another  man  who  had  also 
purchased  stock  in  the  mine,  and  stopped  to  exchange 
congratulations.  The  man's  face  was  flushed,  as  if 
he  had  been  drinking,  but  he  had  not.  On  his  arm 
hung  his  wife,  a  young  woman  with  a  showy  red  waist 
and  some  pink  ribbon  bows  on  her  hat.  She  was  teeter 
ing  a  little  in  time  to  the  music,  while  a  little  girl  clung 
to  her  skirts  and  teetered  also. 

556 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

"  Well,  old  man/'  said  the  new-comer,  with  a  hoars* 
sound  in  his  throat,  "they  needn't  talk  to  us  any  more 
need  they?" 

"  That's  so/'  replied  Andrew,  but  his  joy  in  prosperity 
was  not  like  the  other  man's.  It  placed  him  height' 
above  him,  although  from  the  same  cause.  Prosperit3 
means  one  thing  to  one  man,  and  another  to  his  brother 

Presently  they  met  Jim  Tenny  and  Eva  and  Amabel 
They  were  walking  three  abreast,  Amabel  in  the  mid 
die.  Jim  Tenny  looked  hesitatingly  at  them,  although 
his  face  was  widened  with  irrepressible  smiles.  Ev£ 
gazed  at  them  with  defiant  radiance.  "  Well,"  said  she 
"so  luck  has  turned?" 

Amabel  laughed  out,  and  her  laugh  trilled  high  wilt 
a  note  of  silver,  above  the  chatter  of  the  crowd  and  tht 
blare  arid  rhythmic  trill  of  the  orchestra.  "  I've  had  ar 
ice-cream,  and  I'm  going  to  have  a  new  doll  and  a  doll 
carriage,"  said  she.  "Oh,  Ellen!"  She  left  her  fathei 
and  mother  for  a  second  and  clung  to  Ellen,  kissing  her 
then  she  was  back. 

"Well,  Andrew?"  said  Jim.  He  had  a  shamed  face 
yet  there  was  something  brave  in  it  struggling  for  ex 
pression. 

"Well,  Jim?"  said  Andrew. 

The  two  shook  hands  solemnly.  Then  they  walkec 
on  together,  and  the  sisters  behind,  with  Amabel  cling 
ing  to  her  mother's  hand.  "  Jim's  goin'  to  work  if  h< 
has  had  a  little  windfall,"  said  Eva,  proudly.  "Oh 
Fanny,  only  think  what  it  means!" 

"  I  hope  it  will  be  a  lesson  to  both  of  them,"  said  Mrs 
Zelotes,  stalking  along  after,  but  she  smiled  harshly. 

"  Oh,  land,  don't  croak,  if  you've  got  a  chance  to  laugh 
There's  few  enough  chances  in  this  world,"  cried  Eva 
with  boisterous  good  humor.  "  As  for  me,  I've  come 
out  of  deep  waters,  and  I'm  goin'  to  take  what  com 
fort  I  can  in  the  feel  of  the  solid  ground  under  in} 

557 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

feet."  She  began  to  force  Amabel  into  a  dance  in  time 
with  the  music,  and  the  child  shrieked  with  laughter. 

"S'pose  she's  all  right?"  whispered  Mrs.  Zelotes  to 
Fanny. 

"Land,  yes,"  replied  Fanny;  "it's  just  like  her,  just 
the  way  she  used  to  do.  It  makes  me  surer  than  any 
thing  else  that  she's  cured." 

The  girls  behind  were  loitering.  Abby  turned  to  Ellen 
and  pointed  to  a  rustic  seat  under  a  clump  of  birches. 

"Let's  sit  down  there  a  minute,  Ellen,"  said  she. 

"All  right,"  replied  Ellen.  When  she  and  Abby 
seated  themselves,  Maria  withdrew,  standing  aloof 
under  an  oak,  looking  up  at  the  illumined  spread  of 
branches  with  the  rapt,  innocent  expression  of  a  saint. 

"  Why  don't  you  come  and  sit  down  with  us,  Maria?" 
Ellen  called. 

"In  a  minute,"  replied  Maria,  in  her  weak,  sweet 
voice.  Then  John  Sargent  came  up  and  joined  her. 

"  She'll  come  in  a  minute,"  Abby  said  to  Ellen.  "  She 
— she — knows  I  want  to  tell  you  something." 

Abby  hesitated.     Ellen  regarded  her  with  wonder. 

"  Look  here,  Ellen,"  said  Abby ;  "I  don't  know  what 
you're  going  to  think  of  me  after  all  I've  said,  but — I'm 
going  to  get  married  to  Willy  Jones.  His  mother  has  had 
a  little  money  left  her,  and  she  owns  the  house  clear  now, 
and  I'm  going  to  keep  right  on  working ;  and — I  never 
thought  I  would,  Ellen,  you  know;  but  I've  come  to 
think  lately  that  all  you  can  get  out  of  labor  in  this  world 
is  the  happiness  it  brings  you,  and — the  love.  That's 
more  than  the  money,  and — he  wants  me  pretty  bad. 
I  suppose  you  think  I'm  awful,  Ellen  Brewster."  Abby 
spoke  with  triumph,  yet  with  shame.  She  dug  her  little 
toe  into  the  shadow-mottled  ground. 

"  Oh,  Abby,  I  hope  you'll  be  real  happy,"  said  Ellen. 
Then  she  choked  a  little. 

"  I've  made  up  my  mind  not  to  work  for  nothing," 

558 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

said  Abby ;  "  I've  made  up  my  mind  to  get  whatever  work 
is  worth  in  this  world  if  I  can,  and — to  get  it  for  him  too. ' ' 

"I  hope  you  \vill  be  very  happy/'  said  Ellen  again. 

"There  he  is  now,"  whispered  Abby.  She  rose  as 
Willy  Jones  approached,  laughing  confusedly.  "I've 
been  telling  Ellen  Brewster,"  said  Abby,  with  her  per 
functory  air. 

Ellen  held  out  her  hand,  and  Willy  Jones  grasped  it, 
then  let  it  drop  and  muttered  something.  He  looked 
with  helpless  adoration  at  Abby,  who  put  her  hand 
through  his  arm  reassuringly. 

"  Let's  go  and  see  the  animals,"  said  she;  "I  haven't 
seen  the  animals." 

"  I  guess  I'll  go  and  see  if  I  can  find  my  father  and 
mother,"  returned  Ellen.  "I  want  to  see  my  mother 
about  something." 

"Oh,  come  with  us."  Abby  grasped  Ellen  firmly 
around  the  waist  and  kissed  her.  "  I  don't  love  him  a 
mite  better  than  I  do  you,"  she  whispered;  "so  there! 
You  needn't  think  you're  left  out,  Ellen  Brewster." 

"  I  don't,"  replied  Ellen.  She  tried  to  laugh,  but  she 
felt  her  lips  stiff.  An  unconquerable  feeling  of  desola 
tion  was  coming  over  her,  and  in  spite  of  herself  her 
tone  was  somewhat  like  that  of  a  child  who  sees  an 
other  with  all  the  cake. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  Floretta  got  married  last  night," 
said  Abby,  moving  off  with  Willy  Jones.  John  Sargent 
and  Maria  had  long  since  disappeared  from  under  the 
oak. 

Ellen,  left  alone,  looked  for  a  minute  after  Abby  and 
Willy,  and  noted  the  tender  lean  of  the  girl's  head  towards 
the  young  man's  shoulder;  then  she  started  off  to  find 
her  father  and  mother.  She  could  not  rid  herself  of  the 
sense  of  desolation.  She  felt  blindly  that  if  she  could 
not  get  under  the  shelter  of  her  own  loves  of  life  she 
could  not  bear  it  any  longer.  She  had  borne  up  bravely 

S59 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

under  Robert's  neglect,  but  now  all  at  once,  with  the  sight 
of  the  happiness  of  these  others  before  her  eyes,  it  seemed 
to  crush  her.  All  the  spirit  in  her  seemed  to  flag  and 
faint.  She  was  only  a  young  girl,  who  would  fall  to 
the  ground  and  be  slain  by  the  awful  law  of  gravitation 
of  the  spirit  without  love.  "  Anyway,  I've  got  father  and 
mother,"  she  said  to  herself. 

She  rushed  on  alone  through  the  merry  crowd.  The 
orchestra  was  playing  a  medley.  The  violins  seemed  to 
fairly  pierce  thought.  A  Roman-candle  burst  forth 
on  the  right  with  a  great  spluttering,  and  the  people, 
shrieking  with  delight,  rushed  in  that  direction.  Then 
a  rocket  shot  high  in  the  air  with  a  splendid  curve, 
and  there  was  a  sea  of  faces  watching  with  speechless 
admiration  the  dropping  stars  of  violet  and  gold  and 
rose. 

Ellen  kept  on,  moving  as  nearty  as  she  could  in  the 
direction  in  which  her  party  had  gone.  Then  suddenly 
she  came  face  to  face  with  Robert  Lloyd. 

She  would  have  passed  him  without  a  word,  but  he 
stood  before  her. 

"Won't  you  speak  to  me?"  he  asked. 

"Good-evening,  Mr.  Lloyd,"  returned  Ellen. 

Then  she  tried  to  move  on  again,  but  Robert  still  stood 
before  her. 

"  I  want  to  say  something  to  3^011,"  he  said,  in  a  low 
voice.  "  I  was  coming  to  your  house  to-night,  but  I 
saw  you  on  the  car.  Please  come  to  that  seat  over  there. 
There  is  nobody  in  that  direction.  They  will  all  go 
towards  the  fireworks  now." 

Ellen  looked  at  him  hesitatingly.  At  that  moment 
she  seemed  to  throw  out  protecting  antennae  of  maiden- 
liness ;  and,  besides,  there  was  always  the  memory  of  the 
cut  in  wages,  for  which  she  still  judged  him ;  and  then 
there  was  the  long  neglect. 

"Please  come,"  said  Robert.  He  looked  at  her  at 

560 


THE     PORTION    OF    LABOR 

once  like  a  conqueror  and  a  pleading  child.  Ellen  placed 
her  hand  on  his  arm,  and  they  went  to  the  seat  under 
the  clump  of  birches.  They  were  quite  alone,  for  the 
whole  great  company  was  streaming  towards  the  fire 
works.  A  fiery  wheel  was  revolving  in  the  distance, 
and  rockets  shot  up,  dropping  showers  of  stars.  Ellen 
gazed  at  them  without  seeing  them  at  all. 

Robert,  seated  beside  her,  looked  at  her  earnestly. 
"  I  am  going  to  put  back  the  wages  on  the  old  basis  to 
morrow,"  he  said. 

Ellen  made  no  reply. 

"  Business  has  so  improved  that  I  feel  justified  in 
doing  so,  "said  Robert.  His  tone  was  almost  apologetic. 
Never  as  long  as  he  lived  would  he  be  able  to  look  at  such 
matters  from  quite  the  same  standpoint  as  that  of  the 
girl  beside  him.  She  knew  that,  and  yet  she  loved 
him.  She  never  would  get  his  point  of  view,  and  yet 
he  loved  her.  "  I  have  waited  until  I  was  able  to  do  that 
before  speaking  to  you  again,"  said  Robert.  "  I  knew 
how  you  felt  about  the  wage-cutting.  I  thought  when 
matters  were  back  on  the  old  basis  that  you  might  feel 
differently  towards  me.  God  knows  I  have  been  sorry 
enough  for  it  all,  and  I  am  glad  enough  to  be  able  to 
pay  them  full  wages  again.  And  now,  dear?" 

"It  has  been  a  long  time,"  said  Ellen,  looking  at  her 
little  hands,  clasped  in  her  lap. 

"  I  have  loved  you  all  the  time,  and  I  have  only  waited 
for  that,"  said  Robert. 

Later  on  Robert  and  Ellen  joined  Fanny  and  the 
others.  It  was  scarcely  the  place  to  make  an  announce 
ment.  After  a  few  words  of  greeting  the  young  couple 
walked  off  together,  and  left  the  Brewsters  and  Tennys 
and  Mrs.  Zelotes  standing  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd 
watching  the  fireworks.  Granville  Joy  stood  near 
them.  He  had  looked  at  Robert  and  Ellen  with  a  white 

561 


THE     PORTION     OF    LABOR 

face,  then  he  turned  again  towards  the  fireworks  with  a 
gentle,  heroic  expression.  He  caught  up  Amabel  that 
she  might  see  the  set  piece  which  was  just  being  put  up. 
"  Now  you  can  see,  Sissy,"  he  said. 

Eva  looked  away  from  the  fireworks  after  the  retreat 
ing  pair,  then  meaningly  at  Fanny  and  Andrew. 
"That's  settled,"  said  she. 

Andrew's  face  quivered  a  little,  and  took  on  some 
thing  of  the  same  look  which  Granville  Joy's  wore. 
All  love  is  at  the  expense  of  love,  and  calls  for 
heroes. 

"It  '11  be  a  great  thing  for  her,"  said  Fanny,  in  his 
ear ;  "  it  '11  be  a  splendid  thing  for  her,  you  know  that, 
Andrew." 

Andrew  gazed  after  the  nodding  roses  on  Ellen's  hat 
vanishing  towards  the  right.  Another  rocket  shot  up, 
and  the  people  cried  out,  and  watched  the  shower  of  stars 
with  breathless  enjoyment.  Andrew  saw  their  up 
turned  faces,  in  which  for  the  while  toil  and  trial  were 
blotted  out  by  that  delight  in  beauty  and  innocent  pleas 
ure  of  the  passing  moment  which  is,  for  human  souls, 
akin  to  the  refreshing  showers  for  flowers  of  spring; 
and  to  him,  since  his  own  vision  was  made  clear  by 
his  happiness,  came  a  mighty  realization  of  it  all,  which 
was  beyond  it  all.  Another  rocket  described  a  wonder 
ful  golden  curve  of  grace,  then  a  red  light  lit  all  the 
watching  people.  Andrew  looked  for  Ellen  and  Robert, 
and  saw  the  girl's  beautiful  face  turning  backward 
over  her  lover's  shoulder.  All  his  life  Andrew  had 
been  a  reader  of  the  Bible,  as  had  his  father  and  mother 
before  him.  To-day,  ever  since  he  had  heard  of  his 
good  fortune,  his  mind  had  dwelt  upon  certain  verses 
of  Ecclesiastes.  Now  he  quoted  from  them.  "  Live 
joyfully  with  the  wife  whom  thou  lovest  all  the  days 
of  the  life  of  thy  vanity,  which  He  hath  given  thee  under 
the  sun,  all  the  days  of  thy  vanity,  for  that  is  thy  por- 

562 


THE     PORTION     OF     LABOR 

tion  in  this  life  and  in  thy  labor  which  thou  takest  under 
'the  sun." 

Ellen  saw  her  father,  and  smiled  and  nodded,  then 
she  and  her  lover  passed  out  of  sight.  Another  rocket 
trailed  its  golden  parabola  along  the  sky,  and  dropped 
with  stars;  there  was  an  ineffably  sweet  strain  from 
the  orchestra ;  the  illuminated  oaks  tossed  silver  and 
golden  boughs  in  a  gust  of  fragrant  wind.  Andrew 
quoted  again  from  the  old  King  of  Wisdom — "  I  with 
held  not  my  heart  from  any  joy,  for  my  heart  rejoiced 
in  all  my  labor,  and  that  was  my  portion  of  labor." 
Then  Andrew  thought  of  the  hard  winter  which  had 
passed,  as  all  hard  things  must  pass,  of  the  toilsome 
lives  of  those  beside  him,  of  all  the  work  which  they 
had  done  with  their  poor,  knotted  hands,  of  the  tracks 
which  they  had  worn  on  the  earth  towards  their  graves, 
with  their  weary  feet,  and  suddenly  he  seemed  to 
grasp  a  new  and  further  meaning  for  that  verse  of  Ec- 
clesiastes. 

He  seemed  to  see  that  labor  is  not  alone  for  itself, 
not  for  what  it  accomplishes  of  the  tasks  of  the  world, 
not  for  its  equivalent  in  silver  and  gold,  not  even  for 
the  end  of  human  happiness  and  love,  but  for  the  growth 
in  character  of  the  laborer. 

"That  is  the  portion  of  labor,"  he  said.  He  spoke 
in  a  strained,  solemn  voice,  as  he  had  done  before. 
Nobody  heard  him  except  his  wife  and  mother.  His 
mother  gave  a  sidewise  glance  at  him,  then  she  folded 
her  cape  tightly  around  her  and  stared  at  the  fire 
works,  but  Fanny  put  her  hand  through  his  arm  and 
leaned  her  cheek  against  his  shoulder. 


THE  END 


Date  Due 


000  541  271 


